Congrats to the Government...

LFCFan

Cork wrote:

We have better roads today.

You're having a laugh right? Our 'Penalty Points' system is a farce. It took ages to implement and even after all that time it was still only paper based and there are fcuk all things on the list that can get you points. Thousands of people are getting away with them and what's the point in even having the system when there are fcuk all Gardai on the roads. In nearly 7 years of driving in this country I have only ever seen Gardai on safe stretches of road with rediculous speed limits. I have been done for speeding once which was on the Ballymun Dual Carriageway which at the time had NO speed limit signs and I thought it was 40 MPH. How wrong I was. This is the sort of thing that just pisses off motorists and loses the Gardai any sort of respect. When they start going after the real speeders and bad drivers and start applying the letter of the law when it comes to things like unaccompanied provisional license holders etc etc, then maybe we will see some improvement on the roads. For a start though, the penalty points system has to be computerised and all offences need to be added to the system. They also need to sort out the driving test system and start issuing credit card style drivers licenses. The license thing has nothing to do with safety but if they are going to insist that you always carry your license they would want to make sure they're not going to fall apart after a while. It also shows serious incompetance from the government when they can't even implement something as simple as a credit card style license. FF are a joke and there is no politial will there to do the simple things that would make a difference. I for one will NEVER vote for FF as long as they are as corrupt and useless as the current lot are.

bonkey

I should also point to this article which suggests that after the initial furore over penalty points, they haven't had any lasting impact.

While 2003 may well have been our best in over 40 years, 2004 was a massive disimprovement, ultimately "winning us" top slot on the "worst progress in Europe" table, where the overall managed a 7.9% drop in mortality. We managed a 13.9% increase.

Of course, no doubt Conor will explain why this increase shouldn't be used in his comparison-based methods of defending FF

bonkey

bonkey wrote:

Face it Conor....your basic argument boils down to "we should applaud the least worst option", and mine boils down to "we should applaud people for doing laudable things, not for merely being the least worst option".

Possibly. As I pointed out before, there are many points here made by contributors that I cannot knock. One death is one death too many.

Maybe my argument does boil down to 'the lesser of two evils', whereas yours boils down to 'still not good enough'. But I still believe it's a valid reason to vote for them again. I'm not suggesting fawning praise for FF on the transport issue, merely an acceptance that they've done better than the alternative option. Voting for FF because you fear the opposition's track record more is a perfectly valid opinion.

bonkey wrote:

Of course, no doubt Conor will explain why this increase shouldn't be used in his comparison-based methods of defending FF

You are, of course, comparing a period when FF were in power to...a period when FF were in power. The comparison I was making was not between various Ministers within the Government, but between the Government's record and the Opposition. The table I was working off, which included casualties, was this

http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statistics98/rtastats_longterm.html

Cork

bonkey wrote:

Arguably we don't.
The increase of motor-vehicle quantify and performance over the past 30 years has vastly outstripped any change in our road-system.

Vast Improvement to the roads this country has had to put up with in the past. The National Roads Authority has done a far superior job than our various local authorities.

They also need to sort out the driving test system and start issuing credit card style drivers licenses

Waiting lists for driving tests are not confined this this government.

We should not forget it was this government who reduced the drink driving limits & brought in pelelty points. Government Bashing aside - they have made progress.

Sure the system needs computerisation and more offences have to be added.

Like failure to display a tax disc is not a penelty points offence.

Local Authorites need to be held to account as well. Did the concillers get to Berlin? But the by-roads in many areas are deplorable.

LFCFan

Cork wrote:

Sure the system needs computerisation and more offences have to be added.

Like failure to display a tax disc is not a penelty points offence.

Points for something like that is futile. You can bring that sort of punishment in last. We need the points brought in that will improve safety and there needs to be a much more visible presense on the roads from the Gardai. At the moment it's a joke just how bad the system is. This government are in long enough and have had more money then any other Government, EVER, and they still haven't done anything truely remarkable about the roads. If you were to compare the money there is now with what they have done with it to the money there was in the 80's and what was done with it, I'd bet anything the ratio was better in the 80's.

murphaph

Cork wrote:

Waiting lists for driving tests are not confined this this government.

No, but they have escalated incredibly. When I did my test under the last non-FF government the waiting time was hought to be a horrible 3 months (Finglas)!, Now it's more like a year. This problem has been escalating steadily and we still haven't seen 1 test conducted to clear the backlog. They are doing fcuk all other than talking about this private firm who are going to do x thousand tests. It should never have come to this-we should have enough testers being incentivised enough to work evenings and weekends (look at the NI driver testing site-you have the option of paying more for an evening or weekend test, so the OT payment is covered by the candidate, not the taxpayer-simple! can our lot do it? no way!). You should have to wait no more than 2 weeks for a driving test.

LFCFan

murphaph wrote:

You should have to wait no more than 2 weeks for a driving test.

In America you can do your test by walking in off the street to a DMV centre, do a computerised test and if you pass that you can take the driving test, pass and they have your CC style license for you straight away. So within an hour not only can you do your test but you can walk out with your physical license. Here you have to wait a year to do the test and if you pass it'll be another couple of weeks before they get around to producing your 'Paper' license. To say this country is backward is an understatement. If there was any political will to tackle the problem it wouldn't be a problem but this government don't see how fixing the problem with benefit them so they don't give a crap.

bonkey

Cork wrote:

Waiting lists for driving tests are not confined this this government

And again we see the "this problem isn't unique to this government" defence. Who cares. Governments which are no longer in power are no longer an issue. The public has already dealt with them as appropriate. Defending the current lot on the grounds that they're making the same mistakes is counter-intuitive.

Government Bashing aside - they have made progress

Government bashing aside???? When have you ever been involved in Government bashing Cork? Seriously? Was it when FF were last not in power or something? Because other than admitting that lnog-term issues (that you've reminded us existed under previous governments too) are still a problem under the current regime, I've never seen you be even as much as critical of the government.

But aside from that....Progress has been made, eh?

How much progress? At what cost? Were the most urgent issues dealt with first, dealt with intelligently, kept being dealt with until fully resolved?

At a guess, honest answers to the above should be : Not enough. Too Much. No, No, No.

I seriously cannot understand the "least worst game in town" mentality. I may (or may not) vote for FF as being the least worst option, but I will never defend unacceptably poor performance on the grounds that no-one else has done any better.....which is effectively what you're doing.

I would also note that no other government has actually had a long-enough run in government to actually show whether or not they can really turn things around. They too inherit the mess of their predecessors, but - for some unfathomable reason - are held accountable for not fixing them . makign them worse by so many who accept the same failures from FF with the type of reasoning yourself and Conor74 offer.

The lack of consistency staggers me....but I guess you guys will have the nice comforting safety-blanket of being able to point out that I've never discussed these points with you while another government wasn't in power, so I don't know for a fact whether you'd be as apologistic for them too, or critical of their failings in the way I think we should be of all parties.

jc

LFCFan

LFCFan wrote:

In America

I love the international cherry picking.

Ideally, I too would like to live in a country with a transport system like the US, a health system like the French, and paying the same price for a pint as they pay in Riga, but I don't.

And anyone, anyone who even thinks that the transport system now is only marginally beter than what it was certianly has not driven from Kerry to Cork, or Kerry to Dublin lately.

LFCFan

Deleted User wrote:

I love the international cherry picking.

I was pointing out the MASSIVE difference there is for something as simple as providing a driving test and license. It's not rocket science but for some reason successive Governments (most of them being FF) have failed to install an adequate system. In the 7 years the Government has been in power, the system has gotten worse, not better. It's not the only thing that has gotten worse, despite all the extra cash there is. Maybe the aternative isn't much better but we have to get it through to these politicians that we will no longer accept incompetance and that if you are doing a crap job we will vote you out. We can't just keep voting in FF because we 'think' the alternative will be worse. It's about time Bertie and his muppets realised we won't accept mediocrity when it comes to running OUR country.

Calina

Deleted User wrote:

Ideally, I too would like to live in a country with a transport system like the US, a health system like the French, and paying the same price for a pint as they pay in Riga, but I don't.

actually Conor, I'd prefer a transport system like the French, and a health system like the Germans.

DublinWriter

Deleted User wrote:

Ideally, I too would like to live in a country with a transport system like the US, a health system like the French, and paying the same price for a pint as they pay in Riga, but I don't.

Canada anyone?

Calina

Calina wrote:

actually Conor, I'd prefer a transport system like the French, and a health system like the Germans.

As for Canada, reruns of programmes with the Degrassi kids 24/7? I'd go insane...

bonkey

Calina wrote:

actually Conor, I'd prefer a transport system like the French, and a health system like the Germans.

I would (and do) prefer the Swiss version of both Price of a pint though....cringe.

Cork

I don't know too much about the health systems in either France or Germany.

I would not take their high unemployment figures and sluggish growth rates.

Hopefully - with the administation change in Germany - things will happen.

there is for something as simple as providing a driving test and license.

Driving Licences seem to issued by local authorities.

One central website would be the business.

Maybe - Some of our local councillers may not like this.

murphaph

Cork wrote:

I don't know too much about the health systems in either France or Germany.

I would not take their high unemployment figures and sluggish growth rates.

Hopefully - with the administation change in Germany - things will happen.

Germany had an excellent health care system during the Wirtschaftswunder, so you can have both!

Cork wrote:

Driving Licences seem to issued by local authorities.

One central website would be the business.

Maybe - Some of our local councillers may not like this.

Sorry, what? We don't need a website. We need a complete overhaul of driver testing and licencing. We need to clear the test backlog and tackle the issue of poor driving standards by regulating the driver training industry, not pay IBM consulting another few hundred million on more IT 'solutions'.

cyclopath2001

murphaph wrote:

We need a complete overhaul of driver testing and licencing. We need to clear the test backlog and tackle the issue of poor driving standards by regulating the driver training industry,

I agree.

Ireland's driving test is very easy. Any dedicated driver should pass it first time. A lot of time is wasted testing people who are inadequately trained and prepared for it.

If training were properly regulated and if people were required to have sufficient lessons, the pass rate would go up & the necessity to re-test people would go down. The back log is caused, in part, by incompetant drivers clogging up the system.

How about fining people who fail the test or having a sliding scale of test charges that increases at each sitting? For example, make the second test more expensive than the first & the third even more expensive?

Victor

Deleted User wrote:

You are, of course, comparing a period when FF were in power to...a period when FF were in power. The comparison I was making was not between various Ministers within the Government, but between the Government's record and the Opposition. The table I was working off, which included casualties, was this

http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statistics98/rtastats_longterm.html

Realise that 90% of the drop in the period 1997-2003 happened in Dublin City only, nothing to do with government.

Also Brendan Howlin is still doing the introduction to the Rultes of the Road, all these years later. Despite there being 500+ pieces of road-related legislation since they were last revised.

Cork

cyclopath2001 wrote:

How about fining people who fail the test or having a sliding scale of test charges that increases at each sitting? For example, make the second test more expensive than the first & the third even more expensive?

Very good point. A similar system could be adopted at second and third level.

After some many tests - people should just get a letter saying "I think driving may not be for you".

But regulating that people have sufficient lessons is regulation overkill.

It would be a bonanza for driving schools.

bonkey

My solution...

1) Remove the backlog in processing test applications.
2) Enforce (or legislate, if required) the illegality of people on provisional licenses driving alone. Require that their accompanying driver have 0 points on their license, has had 0 points for more than the last 2 years, and has held a license for more than the last 5 years.
4) Provisional licenses should be valid for 1 year.
3) People should face higher insurance for going on to a second provisional.
4) Only illness or some other unavoidable & proveable delay should enable someone to get a third provisional. If you can't get their license in two years, you shouldn't get let on the roads as a driver. Ever
5) Motorway driving should be a mandatory part of the test, or a seperate test. It should also be allowable for accompanied learners to drive on motorways in order to learn WTF they're supposed to be doing.

I'd consider changing point 4 to allow multiple provisionals, as long as rules 2 and 3 continued to hold.

The major stumbling block is point 1. Until thats dealt with, nothing will ever work. Get rid of the backlog, and keep it gone, and you can start making progress on the rest.

The key is point 2. What sort of fscked-up, moronic logic says that people who are not yet qualified to drive should be allowed drive on their own....and yet thats the reality of the Irish system.

Point 5 is another example of that oh-so-Irish way of thinking...

We'll let learners drive unaccompanied on normal roads even though they're not qualified to do so, but not allow them on motorways. That way, once they've "qualified", there's a whole new set of roads and rules that they're not qualified on that we'll let them drive on.

Its almost as if we want to maximise both the risk to other driver and the duration of same.

jc

Hotblack Desiato

Cork wrote:

But regulating that people have sufficient lessons is regulation overkill. It would be a bonanza for driving schools.

Instead, we have a bonanza for insurance companies - and undertakers.

But yeah, God forbid that we should actually insist on teaching people how to drive before letting them loose on the roads. How inconvenient for them! :rolleyes:

Bonkey, I'd agree with your suggestions apart from the 0 points thing. The way things are going, just about everyone will have some points eventually (more than likely from the usual revenue collection points - safe stretches of road with ridiculously low limits)

IMHO Hibernian are using their "points free discount" as a ruse to increase average premium levels. They know the proportion of drivers with some points is going to keep going up.

murphaph

ninja900 wrote:

Instead, we have a bonanza for insurance companies - and undertakers.

.......underwriters and undertakers!

Cork

murphaph wrote:

.......underwriters and undertakers!

As is the case in most developed countries.

Are you saying insurance should no longer be a legal requirement for motorists?


A insurance database is urgently required - We should have this in Ireland.

Hotblack Desiato

Would these be the other developed countries with a road death rate about half of ours? And, perhaps not coincidentally, far cheaper insurance?

FF's inaction on road safety is costing lives. I had hopes five years ago that Brennan would get something done. I'm still waiting.

Cork

ninja900 wrote:

FF's inaction on road safety is costing lives. I had hopes five years ago that Brennan would get something done. I'm still waiting.

Why no mention of publicans?
Why no mention of our local authorities who are responsible for the up keep of country roads?
Publics atitude to drink?

Road safety rests with all of us not just the government.

Culchie

The Department of Justice is responsible for the Guards who should be enforcing the laws of the land.

However our government does not take ownership or responsibilty for anything......except of course the Celtic Tiger, which they created all by themselves.

Just the good stuff, none of the bad stuff Cork, you know that.

Cork

You cannot merely point at the Gardai or provisional drivers. Even experieced and good drivers have accidents.

We need to look at enforcement sure. But a lot will come down to changing behaviour with regards speed & drink.

We need also to look at local blackspots andour local authorities have a role here.

I would prefer to see a zero limit with regards drink and driving.

The National Safety Council are doing a good job. But a lot comes down to our own behaviour.

You cannot expect Garda checkpoints on every bye road.

Victor

Cork wrote:

You cannot merely point at the Gardai or provisional drivers. Even experieced and good drivers have accidents. We need to look at enforcement sure. But a lot will come down to changing behaviour with regards speed & drink. We need also to look at local blackspots andour local authorities have a role here. I would prefer to see a zero limit with regards drink and driving. The National Safety Council are doing a good job. But a lot comes down to our own behaviour. You cannot expect Garda checkpoints on every bye road.

[Homer voice]Now what we need to do is get someone as kind of a supervisor to all those people, a mandarin, an executive, a leader, a director - a GOVERNMENT[/Homer voice]

The National Safety Council are doing a good job.

Fúck off. They are a front for the motor industry. Board members here: http://www.nsc.ie/Aboutus/Council/Members/

Victor

Interesting piece from today's Irish Times http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/6567353?view=Eircomnet

New delay in penalty points system
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 22nd October, 2005

The introduction of the computerised driver penalty points system has been delayed by at least a further four months and will not be in place until the middle of next year at the earliest, it has emerged.

The link between the Garda's Pulse computer system and other computer databases needed to operate the full penalty-points system will not be operational until next April.

At this point a trial period of at least several weeks will be needed before the system becomes fully operational.

That means it is likely the full roll-out of penalty points will not be possible before the second half of next year.

As recently as June the Government had claimed that the full system would be in place by the end of this year.

The fixed charge processing system (FCPS), which will handle the paperwork for all 70 offences envisaged under the full scheme, is already operational in Dublin, Cork city and parts of Louth and Meath.

The FCPS is currently integrated with the national driver file and with the Courts Service computer system. However, the Department of Justice has confirmed that integration with the Pulse system will not be in place until next April.

The full roll-out cannot take place until Pulse is fully integrated with the other computer systems.

News of the further delay comes in the context of continued loss of life on the Republic's roads.

In one of the worst accidents in recent years five young people aged 21 and 22 lost their lives on Saturday, October 8th, in a two-car collision at Quigley's Point, near Muff, Co Donegal.

Some 313 people have died in road traffic accidents in the Republic so far this year, compared with 285 during the same period last year.

In May, 42 people were killed on the roads, the highest monthly total for nearly four years.

The new delay in the computerisation of the points system also represents a major blow to Government and Garda plans to reduce road deaths by 25 per cent to below 300 by the end of next year.

Reducing road deaths is now a major priority for An Garda Síochána. Some €30 million has been made available this year for the establishment of a new dedicated Garda Traffic Corps, which will number 1,200 by 2008.

Some 600 of these are new recruits who will be made available to the corps as an extra 2,000 gardaí are recruited into the force over the next three years at a cost of €330 million.

The partial manual introduction of points, for speeding, on November 1st, 2002, had an immediate effect. The total of deaths for 2002 fell by 35, to 376. They fell further in 2003 to 335 before rising again last year to 374.

Since the partial introduction of penalty points a number of new offences have been added, including careless driving, non-wearing of seatbelts and not having insurance. Some 65 more offences will be added following full computerisation of the system.

Cork

Victor wrote:

Fúck off. They are a front for the motor industry

So should we then scrap the National Safety Council.

Changing public behaviour with regards drinking & driving, speeding etc is vital.

Penelty Point Technology? - We should be looking at GPS Technology as they are doing in the UK.