"Road Deaths not our fault" - McDowell

Look, people are going to continue to be milled on our roads until the Training is improved, and until decent dual carriageways and motorways are constructed. We're in a first world economy, with thousands of cars, on roads designed for the second world, and to take hundreds of cars. The main Cork to Dublin road between Abbeyleix and Portlaoise is a contraflow road that twists and turns through ditches!

Okay-now-this is surely going to ruffle a few feathers but I have got to agree with McDowell - partially at least.
The government can only do so much-short of turning the country into a complete nanny state. Road safety is one thing in which each and everyone of us has a responsibility to improve. Granted they could ensure certain rules are enforced more but this is neigh on impossible on all roads and full enforecent and detection rates will never be achieved.

I've voiced this before in this forum and I will keep saying it as I believe it to be true.
As long as drivers continue to have a complete disregard for the safety of other on the road, continue to drive too fast for the conditions, and indeed drive with little or no patience or respect for other road users there will alway be carnage on our roads.
Now who best that to change drivers habits than drivers them selves.
If we think that this will never happen and that the government need to spoon feed us information and training (a lot of which might I add is common sense) then we should be prepared to face absolute enforcement of all rules of the road-which of course will warrant the usual complaints of the guards being too harsh......

kippy wrote:

Okay-now-this is surely going to ruffle a few feathers but I have got to agree with McDowell - partially at least.
The government can only do so much

Yeah, and they aren't even doing that.

kippy wrote:

-short of turning the country into a complete nanny state.

How does enforcing exsisting sensible laws and maybe trying to have a proper training system resenble a nanny state?

kippy wrote:

Road safety is one thing in which each and everyone of us has a responsibility to improve.

Agreed, to a certain extent. But a government that allows untrained drivers to drive alone and does not provide the resources to the gardai to enforece what laws there already are must take some responsibility.

Granted they could ensure certain rules are enforced more but this is neigh on impossible on all roads and full enforecent and detection rates will never be achieved.[/quote]

You do not need full detection. No country has full detection. We need increased detection. The risk of getting caught has to *appear* to be greater.

kippy wrote:

I've voiced this before in this forum and I will keep saying it as I believe it to be true. As long as drivers continue to have a complete disregard for the safety of other on the road, continue to drive too fast for the conditions, and indeed drive with little or no patience or respect for other road users there will alway be carnage on our roads.

Hmmm, how could we change this attitude? If only we had some kind of set of rules which governed how people behaved on the road. It could be a book perhaps. In this book it could be explained how one should behave onthe road. We could bavck this up with a comprehensive set of laws which promised punishment for those that broke these rules and laws. Then we could have a special police force that look after traffic. They could then enforce these laws. Wow, that would be great.

Then perhaps we could try to train better drivers somehow. Because if we want to get people to drive safely, with consideration for others we will have to train them. TBH I don't know how we can do that.I always though that tpye of thing was the remit of the government but you seem to think it is not for the government, sort of "training the beginning of the nanny state." If it is not the governments responsibility to sort out driver training then whos is it?

kippy wrote:

Now who best that to change drivers habits than drivers them selves.
If we think that this will never happen and that the government need to spoon feed us information and training (a lot of which might I add is common sense) then we should be prepared to face absolute enforcement of all rules of the road-which of course will warrant the usual complaints of the guards being too harsh......

Why would drivers change their habits? If you do something and there are no ill consequences, in fact there are nothing but positive consequeces why would you change? It is a fact of human nature that unless there is a downside to a behaviour then that behaviour is unlikely to change. How about being dead for a downside, I hear you cry. Well that has limited success. The person who id killed will be much safer on the roads from that point on, everyone else will believe it will never happen to them.

Two things need to happen. The attitude of the current drivers needs to be changed and we need for form the correct attitude in our new drivers. The former will have to be done through enforcment and later through proper training. Neither of which are nannying.

MrP

Mr P,
Great post.
An agree with much of it.
BUT
The laws are already there-the rules of the road are already there-enforcement is already taking place-drink driving and speeding are harshly punished-and rightly so. Granted there could be more detection of these-however.....
The government (no matter who they are)or anyone else cannot be expected to be responsible for every single road death in this country-the framework is there to drive safely. It is up to each and every driver to follow it.
Accidents will always happen for one reason or another but cutting down on them is up to each and every one of us. Speeding and impatience on the road are as far as I am concerned two of the biggest killers. These are down to driver attitudes. The government cannot make someone more patient-this is something we need to instill in ourselves and as many have seen that is the whole point of those safety adds on the TV.
Talking about these issues is great as it will hopefully make others think twice about their habits.

That's why you need a good government that understands that sometimes unpopular decisions have to be made. Thing is, sensible governments don't exist in this country.

A Co Clare councillor has said rural dwellers should be excused from drink-driving.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Flan Garvey said people who visit pubs as their only social outlet are familiar with local roads and drive more carefully and slowly, especially when they have had a few drinks.

The elected local authority member has appealed for a "special understanding" to be shown.

He insists he does not condone drink-driving, but wants allowances made for certain people, such as those who live alone, and who would travel just a few miles to the pub once or twice a week.

This has to be a joke, right?? :eek:

So many things wrong with it.. let's pick out a few:
- the idea that people HAVE to go to a pub
- the idea that they should be allowed drive to/from there
- they're familiar with local roads eh? Familiarity breeds contempt - hence people tearing along local R-roads
- the somewhat ironic assertion from a country councillor that there's nothing else to do for entertainment in the countryside BUT drink
- Him claming that he doesn't condone drink driving, but ... :rolleyes:

Don't you just love this country!

driver attitude has a lot to do with it

however if we adopted and enforced the UK approach of only letting people drive unaccompanied once they have their full licence (and even then imposing restrictions for the first year or two), this would have some impact, no doubt

again it's the 3 E's - engineering,enforcement,education

i'd weight it towards enforcement personally...

The stats show that after the initial introduction of penalty points, we were amongst the safest countries in the world for a few months. Then the fatalities began to rise again.
This shows that motorists know how do drive safely, but choose not to. Therefore training should not be a priority.

You can argue that enforcement would help, and it probably would, but I'm not convinced that abdicating personal responsibility is the way to go. Blame the government if you want, but it's the drivers causing the accidents.

M