Thought I should warn people

Silent Bob

Originally posted by Zascar
Speeding is the cause a large portion of accident on our roads, with the majority of the rest being caused by general bad driving.

You're really going to have to back that claim up.

This is the UK department of transports breakdown of RTA causes. Out of 556 accidents only 19 were found to be due to excessive speed.

200 were due to maneouvre error. That's over ten times the number of accidents due to excessive speed.

I know these are UK statistics but I can't see any reason why they would be wildly different to ours (I couldn't find any Ireland related RTA causation breakdowns).

KinSlayer

Speed is just a high profile scapegoat for the road carnage. The government and the media have for the last ages being parping on about how its speed thats at fault for the majority of the accidents. why speed? if your cynical one might think its because speed can be tackled in a highly visible way that keeps the majority of the people happy that something is being done to tackle the road carnage. Also helps that they can make money out of it, especially in these times.

no matter what you do there will always be those who try and push the car beyond their abilities and kill themselves and also there are those that just commit suicide.

One thing I have found about fast drivers is that the proportion of considerate fast drivers is higher than the proportion of considerate slow drivers. they also tend to be more aware of what is going on around them where as slower drivers seem not to care, beleiving that because they are going at or near the speed limit then they dont need to look in their mirrors.

its a shame they dont teach beginners how to drive on the open road and motorways, to drive in the slow lane on less passing out a car in front, to use the hard shoulder to let other cars that want to go faster pass by and to thank other people when they in turn are let past.

In America they have a law that if you have 5 or more cars behind you must do everything you can to let them by safely. It would be nice to see a similar rule hear but i wont be holding my breath for it.

For those that think that holding up another driver that wants to go faster saves people ahead from danger. It might, or it might actually put you into alot more danger. The longer the car is behind the less patient the driver becomes and the more dangerous. Chances are left there long enough they will pass in an idiotic place putting themselves, you and any on coming cars in extreme danger.

These days the 2 biggest dangers i find on the the roads are people who follow each other too closely behind the car in front leaving no gaps for passing out safely (then there are some that dont believe in letting you back in if you are passing) even though the rule says that you are supposed to be a metre for every mile an hour. 60mph = 60 metres. The other big danger is the people that believe its ok to pull out in front of you if they reckon that there is enough time to break.

a prioritised list of dangers starting with the most dangerous

people that pull out right in front of you
tailgaters
people that dont know where they are going and just jam on or indicate at the last second
people that indicate left when they are passing a car on the inside that is turning right (thus causing the car behind to think that its going to go left and pulls to the right, into the path of the right turning car)
drunks
speeders

I generally dont care much about speeders as i just let them by and get on with it. much safer in my opinion and they also might flush out the hidden gardi men

Bigalow

not even going to reply to pimp ninja. Way to much waffle. In his eyes the Gardaí are the be all and end all of law enforcement. His opinion and he is fully entitled to it.

Bigalow

the Gardaí should be more concerned with catching really criminals rather than making a quick €

Pimp Ninja

Originally posted by Bigalow
not even going to reply to pimp ninja. Way to much waffle. In his eyes the Gardaí are the be all and end all of law enforcement. His opinion and he is fully entitled to it.

Gurramock seems to be able to understand my point. However I wont let this drag on anymore, I'l accept your apology for the personal attacks and insulting me, because you saying that I'm entitled to my opinion seems to be the closest thing to an apology that I'm going to get.

The gardaí are not the be all and end all of law enforcement. All I said was that they have a thankless job, and that I support their position. I have agreed that they are not perfect. I was arguing that they are not all as corrupt as you are making them out to be.

the Gardaí should be more concerned with catching really criminals rather than making a quick €

Criminal : One that has committed or been legally convicted of a crime
Stop me if I'm wrong, but speeding is against the law, therefore its a crime.
Are you saying that you should be let away with minor crimes and only convicted if its a serious crime?
If so where do you draw the line?
Would it be ok to pinch a womans arse and not call that sexual harassment, because after all its not a full on rape?

I might be going off topic here a little, and for that I apologise. The point I'm trying to illustrate here, is that I believe every crime should be punished regardless of how small or big the crime is.

I agree that the Gardaí are not perfect and they have made mistakes on occasion. But they are nowhere near as bad as you make them out to be. I firmly believe that their job is a hard job, and they rarely get any thanks for it. I respect them for the work that they do, and I believe that over all they are doing a good job.

After having been in an accident, thanks to a wonderful lady that wasnt sure what a red light meant, I am left unable to ride a motorcyle. Unable not in the sense that I cant, but in the sense that it is physically too painful to do so. Thanks to the Gardaí, one of which witnessed the accident, she was prosecuted, and is never allowed to drive on Irish roads again.

Bigalow

Don't take that as an apology I nothing to apologise for.
I grow increasingly tired of your replies so this will be my last reply on this thread

Bard

Originally posted by Bigalow
Don't take that as an apology I nothing to apologise for.
I grow increasingly tired of your replies so this will be my last reply on this thread

Nothing to apologise for?

You said that he has anger management problems, called him a "lying c*nt" and said that he hasn't a clue what he is talking about. That sounds like unwarranted and pointless personal insults to me and yeah- something that should be apologised for.

With your attitude, I hope that WAS your last post, - and not just on this thread, but somehow, I doubt it.

uberwolf

which do you reckon will lead to a greater slowing down, people aware that if there's a speed trap they'll see it and slow down, or not being sure if there going to get caught, maybe slowing down(in general) combined with the notion that having been caught once they'd be more inclined to take it easy?

Pimp Ninja

Bard, my sentiments exactly, theres no point quoting that because I agree with everything you have said there, and would just end up quoting your entire post. As we all know repitition makes baby jesus cry

Thanks for putting it so eloquently.

[added]
To get back on topic.

Originally posted by uberwolf
which do you reckon will lead to a greater slowing down, people aware that if there's a speed trap they'll see it and slow down, or not being sure if there going to get caught, maybe slowing down(in general) combined with the notion that having been caught once they'd be more inclined to take it easy?

You have 3 good points here that I'd like to discuss.
The awarness of a speed trap ahead leads to a slowing down, in that area. However once the culprits have passed the speed trap they tend to speed back up again, because they know that there wil not be another one, and feel comfortable that they wont be caught. This has been proven by experiments that were carried out in the UK recently enough. There was even a TV program about it.

The second point of not being aware of the speed trap can do 2 things. It can give a general slowing down effect to overall traffic, which I believe it did overall when it was introduced. Or some people just wont give a crap, and will continue to drive this way untill they are caught.

Finally the having been caught, and awarded penalty points on your licence is the biggest deterrant possible. On the news last night there was a section on how many penalty points have been issued so far.
Theres a total of 17,300 people with points on their licences.
1 person had 8 points
8 people had 6 points
X people had 4 points
X people had 2 points

Now I'm not sure about the figures for 4 points and 2 points but you can see the decrease to only 1 person with 8 points from a total of 17,300 being dramatic. This shows that most, if not all, people that have received points have slowed down. This proves by far that it is effective, and that repeat offences, although they do happen, are not commonplace.

Bard

Originally posted by Pimp Ninja
Bard, my sentiments exactly, theres no point quoting that because I agree with everything you have said there, and would just end up quoting your entire post. As we all know repitition makes baby jesus cry

No worries, Pimp Ninja

That Baby Jesus fellah must cry... a lot.

Did anyone hear the guy from the Insurance companies Federation talking on Today FM's "Last Word" yesterday? He was being badgered a bit (and probably rightly so), with the presenter relentlessly asking "would ye not drop premiums for those who manage not to pick up any penalty points?" ... somehow he came up with the idea that those who HAD penalty points present a LOWER risk in that they would be trying HARDER than usual not to get any more because of the risk of losing their licenses. Naturally the argument that those who drive safely and carefully enough to NOT get any penalty points must surely be better drivers and thus the lowest risks of all flew right past him...

Silent Bob

Originally posted by Pimp Ninja
Now I'm not sure about the figures for 4 points and 2 points but you can see the decrease to only 1 person with 8 points from a total of 17,300 being dramatic. This shows that most, if not all, people that have received points have slowed down. This proves by far that it is effective, and that repeat offences, although they do happen, are not commonplace.

Why is speeding so heavily targeted though? Of all the causes for road traffic accidents excessive speeding ranks fairly low (far lower than manoeuvre error). Surely we would save more lives by targeting the greater causes of RTAs which currently seem to go unnoticed by the traffic divsion of the police?

Victor

Originally posted by Bigalow
the Gardaí should be more concerned with catching really criminals rather than making a quick €

Individual Gardaí don't make money from fines. The Garda as a whole doesn't make money from fines.

There is evidence in the UK that the state as a whole don't make money from fines, the typical fine would need to rise to STG£100+ (€150+) for the state to make money on them.

Yes they save moeny from accidents, but they don't make money.

Originally posted by Silent Bob
Why is speeding so heavily targeted though? Of all the causes for road traffic accidents excessive speeding ranks fairly low (far lower than manoeuvre error). Surely we would save more lives by targeting the greater causes of RTAs which currently seem to go unnoticed by the traffic divsion of the police?

Without looking at the figures, while "going to the wrong side of road" is a major cause of accidents, speed is the major killer.

Victor

Originally posted by Silent Bob
This is the UK department of transports breakdown of RTA causes. Out of 556 accidents only 19 were found to be due to excessive speed.

That report appears to only cover one section of road with particular characteristics and concentrated on Sleep-Related Vehicle Accidents (SRVAs). :rolleyes:

Silent Bob

Originally posted by Victor
That report appears to only cover one section of road with particular characteristics and concentrated on Sleep-Related Vehicle Accidents (SRVAs). :rolleyes:

Granted that the stats were collated during a study of SRVAs but that doesn't mean that they ignored all other causes (to do so while collating stats on SRVAs would be highly unscientific) so the fact that the study concentrates on SRVAs does nothing to diminish the value of the stats on causations of RTAs.

And yes it was a single up/down stretch of road. A dual-carriageway, which, being a nice stretch of tarmac would likely have people regularly travelling over the speed limit (I have no proof of this other than anecdotal evidence).

So I think that those stats DO add value to a discussion on the effects of "speeding". To simply dismiss them is indicative of a mind that is already made up and unwilling to consider other sides of the argument.

Victor

Originally posted by Silent Bob
So I think that those stats DO add value to a discussion on the effects of "speeding". To simply dismiss them is indicative of a mind that is already made up and unwilling to consider other sides of the argument.

http://www.nra.ie/PublicationsResources/DownloadableDocumentation/RoadSafety/d706.PDF

Page 5 (page 13 of the PDF file), Excessive speed and or alcohol are strongly related to single vehicle accidents.

Page 6 (page 14 of the PDF file), Driver error accounts for 82% of all accidents.

Table 36, Page 32 (page 40 of the PDF file), while excessive speed accounted for 13.7% of 2 car RTAs, secondary symptoms of speeding (failing to stop at junctions, dangerous overtaking) caused perhaps 50% of of such accidents.

Silent Bob <

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Silent Bob

Originally posted by Victor
Silent Bob <

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Calm down there mate!

I never said that excessive speed hasn't caused/isn't the cause of accidents (check any of my posts if you so wish).

All I'm saying is that it is very easy to target "speeding" and it seems like that is what the authorities are doing, while there are many other causes of accidents that seem to go unnoticed.

Why isn't there a crack-down on bad-driving? Why do you never see people pulled over for indicating incorrectly at roundabouts? Why isn't anybody ever pulled over for some of the overtaking stunts that they have performed while I drive my scooter?
Speaking of scooters, how many of them have you seen pulled over for weaving in and out of traffic? They'll certainly never get penalty points for speeding!
What about undertaking? What about people who sit in the overtaking lane of a motorway driving at 50mph (people like these encourage others to undertake)?

Is it because a single traffic cop can catch many people driving 5 mph over the speed limit while it would take greater resources to go for bad drivers?

Originally posted by Victor
Page 5 (page 13 of the PDF file), Excessive speed and or alcohol are strongly related to single vehicle accidents.

Which is it? If someone was driving excessively fast while under the influence the cause should be drink-driving (their judgment of distance/speed is impaired, along with common-sense).

Originally posted by Victor
Page 6 (page 14 of the PDF file), Driver error accounts for 82% of all accidents.

Table 36, Page 32 (page 40 of the PDF file), while excessive speed accounted for 13.7% of 2 car RTAs

Reduce excessive speeding related accidents by 50% and you get a 6.85% reduction of accidents.
Reduce driver error related accidents by 50% and you get a 41% reduction of accidents.

As regards the secondary symptoms, failing to stop isn't a symptom of excessive speed, it's a symptom of inattentiveness/unsafe driving.

So no, I don't think I've missed the point at all, but it ain't worth getting into a protracted stats-slinging over

BTW: Despite the impression you might have, I obey the speed-limits

Neil3030

Lads, keep it civil...

sharkman

Dont know if anyone has posted this link before ,, But here goes anyway :::

http://www.speedtraps.ie.nu/

Hellrazer

Just adding my 2 cent to the debate here.In my opinion speeding is a scapegoat for the carnage on our roads.
The garda should be targeting drink drivers/stupid drivers.
For example where I live here in Kildare every pub car park is full to bursting at weekends and Id say 80% of those driving leave that pub well over the legal limit and some are not even in any state to control a vehicle.
Why isnt there checkpoints on every road leading away from these pubs.Theres one way to stop this problem.

As for the stupid driving issue.I see someone pointed out that driver error accounys for most accidents.
I see people every day unable to use a roundabout properly,driving too slow,too aggressively,dont know what indicators are for,cant judge road conditions, among other things.
These people are accidents waiting to happen and these should be targeted by the guards.
As for the topic of the thread

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Iagree 100% with people telling others the location of speedtraps as most the traps are pure money making exercises for the state.
Yesterday there was a speedtrap on the M4 just after Maynooth.This is a 70mph zone and they`re stopping people for speeding.Absolute joke!!!!!!!I mean its well known that only a tiny minority of accidents take place on motorways.
But the locations should reflect the danger risk for people ie.traps should be in built up areas,near schools etc.and not in a place where the road is dead straight and doesnt pose a huge accident risk.
Richie