Another Serious Car Crash

That's a **** comment.

If a driver comes upon a slow moving car, they are within their rights to overtake when safe to do so.

Judgement regarding a safe overtake is centered around the speed of the vehicle being overtaken among other things.

In rural Ireland, you could travel 20 km easily waiting for a valid overtaking chance even if the car in front is doing something as slow as 40 km/hr.

The front car accelerating just when someone is overtaking is one of the most dangerous acts on the road and can unknowingly put the overtaking driver at risk. I've seen it a few times but had more than sufficient margin to safely overtake however that might not be the case for everyone every time.

Should be an instant ban if done on purpose imo.

Your response would suggest that everyone must drive at the chosen speed of the slowest driver on any given route. I suppose you also like to police the overtaking lane on any given motorway by sitting just under the speed limit in that lane, your thinking being that you are at or near the speed limit so nobody could be coming past you.

And another single car crash & death in donegal yesterday morning. Looks set to be a very bad year for road deaths.

Pass when it is safe to do so. If you are unable to do so, then don't attempt it and whinge and blame the other driver for you imagining them speeding up. Perhaps invest in a better, safer car rather than spending your money on go-faster stripes and body kits for your nissan micras. Or better still, a few driving lessons. The rules of the road book is probably available online for free so that won't cost you anything

Your last paragraph is a pis$ poor attempt at constructing a strawman. As in zero out of 10

Like I said, people just don't seem to stop .

Coincidentally this came on the radio yesterday, the open chords still resonate with me and bring me back to the first time I saw the ad. Maybe we need more shock and awe ad campaigns again.

Yep, we never find out what went wrong, there used to be an Australian program on one of the FTA channels that went through the forensic crash report (glossing over any sensitive stuff) that gave a rare insight into collisions...too fast/too heavy/ etc. Was very educational and not in the least upsetting or macabre.

I think there's a level of cockiness about many drivers. I've a few male friends early-mid 40s. They think they are brilliant drivers, that they can handle and control any car, whatever speed. Same guys have all had accidents, thankfully no one killed or injured, but they all think someone or something else was at fault.

I blame that ***** programme with their ***** presenters - Top Gear for contributing to road deaths and accidents.

Glamorises fast cars, speeding, selfishness, ignorance, entitlement, ego ... treated like a religion. Also stuff like What Car magazine etc etc ...

And we consume this stuff like sheep.

The funny thing is that we don't design or manufacture motorised transport in this country. We don't produce any energy to power these machines. We probably contribute nothing to road safety theory. Yet we think we are the bees knees when it comes to driving.

And someone pointed it ages back. The more dangerous the road the more reckless people are.

Also, more and more cars competing for dangerous road space. Some idiot will say let's make the roads safer. Like we can make all bendy roads straight. Or that people should be allowed speed regardless of the conditions.

No, just drive safer or don't drive.

Define a "very bad year". What are you comparing it to so that it comes off as "very bad"?

I only ask as we are on course to hit about 184 deaths this year, which is barely outside the top 20 for 'good' years in the last century. Prior to 2016, there were only 2 years in the last 100 where there were fewer deaths.

Having 80% of the last 100 years figures showing as worse than the current year doesn't really qualify as "very bad" in anybody's book. The recent high profile couple of crashes aside, it's not been that bad. We are making huge strides in the right direction. And again, as with the other poster, this only deals with the raw numbers while the amount of people, cars, incidents, non-motorised traffic on the roads etc. have all exploded upwards.

Is it a good thing that more people get to live versus dying in a car accident? Of course.

The fact we get more mangled people is just a byproduct of that. Better, from a societal POV, that they live than die. Plus, for every person with a seriously reduced quality of life, how many are relatively fine and continue to thrive and live a happy, healthy life?

Clearly I don't wish either injuries or deaths to go up.

I'd rather there were less crashes.

That would be best achieved by people following basic rules of the road, driving according to the road and weather conditions, being attentive at all times, being in a fit condition to drive, keeping their vehicle in a fit state to drive etc.

RIP to those involved and condolences to those left behind.

When it came up on my news feed I assumed it was just a cached version from the earlier accident in Clonmel.

Devasted also for my colleagues in Tipp dealing with 2 such awful collisions in such a short space of time. I know from experience how awful it is being the person knocking on someone's door to break the news!

I don't know how it will change. I know at times the enforcement is not there but so many many times I just get 'theres real crimes going on out there', 'have you nothing better to be doing?', 'I was just late for _____', etc, etc...

There's a thread on speeding here in the motors section and so many people are caught and instead of holding their hands up and accepting that it was their responsibility as a driver not to speed they instead are looking for technicalities on how maybe they can get away without punishment, or blaming the location or saying it's not speeding that's to blame, it's phones...or roads....or other drivers, etc...

Look at any Garda tweet in relation to Checkpoints or traffic stops and inevitably someone will comment saying that it's a waste of time, it's revenue generation only and that we'd be better off stopping assaults in Dublin City, as if that is the only thing that matters.

It's fighting a forest fire with a handheld extinguisher at the moment. But people need to accept that they are responsible and they are in control, ultimately that is the only thing that can really change the current situation. The Gardai are not omnipresent and are not to blame because someone 'had' to make that overtake, 'had' to take that call, 'had' to drive at the speed limit (or above). It was never part of the rules of the road that if no Gardaí were present then you had free reign to drive how you liked!

1st point:

Just because another person(s) died on the roads, that doesn't make it a very bad year. If only 10 die in 2024, this would smash all other records in this category and would be the exact opposite to a very bad year. It would be a very GOOD year. But, by your definition, 10 people died, therefore it's a very bad year. Also, not all road deaths are preventable, never mind easily preventable.

2nd point:

We ARE seeing a reduction in road deaths, over the medium/long term the figures are only trending in one direction. You'll always have statistical anomalies, but every single year where the figures don't go down doesn't mean it's a VERY BAD YEAR!!! Yes, this year is not as good as the previous 4 or 5, but it is better than 93 of the previous 95 before that. That's not a very bad year in anybody's book. Especially when you consider the other external factors already mentioned in terms of size of cars, number of road users, millions of kms travelled etc.

Nothing to do with these tragic deaths or other recent road deaths, RIP to those who have lost their lives and I wish the parents here the best, I don’t know how they are going to cope with this living nightmare.

But I have to say it's not strange at all and I can see why there are more accidents. Irish drivers are a DISGRACE. I see it EVERY single day, laws broken, no regard for others. Speeding, speeding through estates, 30km signs up everywhere, completely ignored, drivers speeding like it's a motorway, breaking lights, no indicators, using bus lanes, cars turning at pedestrian crossings, people on their phones, no regard shown for pedestrians, cars going up one way streets to save time.

There's no enforcement by the Gardai, they do their bank holiday routine on roads where there are no accidents. But apart from that I never see anything. The odd time you'll see speed cam vans, and I don’t know is that just a money making racket. Everyone behaves around them but then go back to normal once past them. There's so much impatience everywhere. Everyone in a hurry to get somewhere as fast as possible. If someone takes literally a couple of seconds to move when the lights go green, you'll have people thumping on their horn. It's not a minority who are guilty of offences, it's the majority.

That's a ridiculous argument and stance to take. Everything to do with annual stats and numbers needs to be compared to other years to see whether it's an improvement or disimprovement. By your definition above (i.e. when scores of people die) every single year ever is a very bad year, in which case pointing out that 2024 is a very bad year is both reductionist and pointless.

From a statistical point of view, claiming this as a very bad year with zero comparison to anything else is ridiculous.......e.g........Is 22 degrees a very hot temperature? Yes, if you're from the Arctic, no if you're from Riyadh. Yes if you're brushing your teeth, no if you're making tea or coffee. As a stand alone figure, it's pretty fcuking meaningless though.

You need to judge 2023 relative to the other years before you can determine how good or bad it is.

How many of this year's road deaths have been needless and preventable, then? What percentage? and how are you calculating this percentage?

If 40 people die of heart attacks or other ailments behind the wheel, then these aren't preventable road deaths (in the normal scheme of things). They count, but they're not preventable. Therefore, this should be a very good year but your point above that any year where there are scores of deaths is a bad year directly contradicts this.

So every year is a very bad year then, in your opinion?

I already did, you chose not to address it. It's not a very bad year because it's a better year than about 80 of the previous 100 years. If you line all the years up in order of fatalities, this year is in the best 20%, and again, that's unadjusted figures which doesn't take anything else into account bar the raw data. That's better than most, which means it's not a very bad year, by definition.

This has nothing to do with the relative good or badness of a particular year and is a completely separate argument.

I'm ignoring nothing. You're ignoring the actual trend and instead looking for some sort of soon-to-be-but-maybe-not-actually-it's-quite-possible start of a trend. You can't say "look at this new trend" when you don't know it's gonna be an actual trend while also ignoring the actual trend which shows the number of deaths is trending downwards. Well, you can, but you'd look foolish.

Also, 2020 and 2021 are statistical anomalies and cannot be used in any meaningful context from a statistical POV. Changes in our behaviour towards, and use of cars and public transport, skew everything, meaning the data is corrupt.

We're improving. The last 5 years have been the best period in the country in terms of road deaths since the inception of the state, barring the pre-war years when a) nobody drove and b) they weren't driving fast enough to kill anyone.