"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

Mucco wrote:

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

Ok, I presume you have the answer then. Go on then, enlighten us.

MrP

MrPudding wrote:

Ok, I presume you have the answer then. Go on then, enlighten us.

MrP

Well, I didn't claim to have an answer, but, in my opinion it's about getting people to take responsibility for their own driving. It's not easy, we seem to have a culture of helping people drive badly.
I have been in plenty of pubs at night where there's been a general announcement about what road the Gardai are on. There's the flashing of lights to warn people of speed traps etc...
Education, as usual is the key.
For example: Doing 60kph in the city insted of 50kph over a 10km distance only saves you 2 minutes. And that's assuming you don't get stopped at lights where a slower car would catch up with you anyway.

Fair points.
Just something I am wondering about.
I have never lived outside of this country and wonder what
a) The statistics for road deaths per car on the road are in other EU countries.
b) The methods that other countries follow in educating the driving population.

Anyone that can point me to a relevant website?

kippy wrote:

a) The statistics for road deaths per car on the road are in other EU countries.

http://www.nra.ie/PublicationsResources/DownloadableDocumentation/RoadSafety/file,1948,en.pdf Table 53: International Comparisons

However, it isn't necessarily a useful statistic. Take two societies.

Society A. Car orientated. Population 1 million. 1.0 cars per capita. 20 traffic deaths per year per 100,000.

Cars 1 million.
Deaths 200.
Deaths per 1,000,000 cars: 200

Society B. Public transport orientated. Population 1 million. 0.5 cars per capita. 10 traffic deaths per year per 100,000.

Cars 500,000.
Deaths 100.
Deaths per 1,000,000 cars: 200

I think we can say its safer to be in society B.

Mucco wrote:

I get your point, and you are correct in that the government can do a lot more. However, my point is that education is a two-way street. People have to want to learn, drivers have to want to be safe, and not just blame someone else.

It does not really matter whether people want to learn properly or not. The system to allow people to learn safely is simply not there. I agree that education is a too way street, part of it id the person learning and part of it is the government. With the best will in the world a person that really wants to learn properly and safely is let down because the governments side of the two way street is fcuking dug up and no use to anyone.

The other side of this is there is a section of the public that can't be arsed learning properly. People that want to learn properly & the general public at large need protectino from these people. It is the job of the government to protect its citizens.

Mucco wrote:

I'm not really talking about extra training: the stats following the introduction of penalty points showed a sharp reduction in fatalities, so the knowledge is there. It's a matter of persuading people to drive like this the whole time.

M

Yes, the knowledge is there, of that there is no doubt. Better training, however should still have a more positive effect. Its not like if we reduce road death even further people will complain we are doing too much.

People here keep saying it is a matter of persuading people to drive properly. I will ask again, who has the responsibility to do the persuasion?

MrP