What would you do to improve driving and road safety in Ireland?

I was talking to someone yesterday who'd just come back from a holiday in Iceland. There, they take the mangled wreckage of crashed cars and place it by the side of the road (literally, there really only is one road to speak of in Iceland!) with a big sign saying something like "Don't let this be you - drive carefully".

Can't see this happening here though, it'd probably be considered "insensitive" or some such claptrap.

micmclo wrote:

Better reporting of accidents.
I often hear reports on the radio of some young person losing control of the car. Seems like the car spun out of control on it's own accord and no top rally driver could control it.

Every week in a national paper or maybe on that crime show on RTE (Crime watch/call ), do a short report on a cross section of accidents.

So instead of hearing a one line report of someone being killed, if the autopsy shows they were three times over the drink limit or full of drugs, then report it.
If some businessman was too cheap to buy proper tyres for his executive BMW, then report that.
And if the driver was blameless and the Co. Council left the road in bits, people have a right to know.

+ 1 !

I was behind a learner driver with an ISM instructor today. I will give an accompanied learner on a lesson all the time in the world. I was behind this particular learner for about five minutes and I was appalled at what the instructor appeared to be teaching them.

One glaringly obvious error was that the instructor was telling the learner to leave one wheel on speed 'humps' and one in the gap. The correct way obviously is to leave the hump in the centre of the car so that you have no wheels on it. I shudder to think of all the people who have learned to drive with ISM in Ranelagh some of the habits they get people into are a disgrace. At least they have stopped using the area in front of the shop on Ranelagh Road as a set down area, that was really annoying.

That's plain silly. Your instructor should be strung up. The whole point of the design of the bump is that you don't have to drive over it. Jesus wept. Name and shame please.

Lots of the suggestions mentioned here are obvious & will most likely pay for themselves so why is the State unable to move at anything greater than a snails pace?

* The politicians have been talking about increases the driving testers for at least 10 years so why has this not been done years ago?
* Registration of driving instructors has also been talked to death for as long as I can remember & is simple implement.

Appointing the likes of Gay Byrne are just PR stunts with added bonus of passing the buck to unelected body.

:rolleyes:

biko wrote:

Investigate and take the best from drivers education in US,.....

Having spent the summer in New York the only aspect I would take from the US would be the roads. Apart from that the poor standard of driving, wrecklessness on the roads and lack of law abiding drivers in the US is unbelievable. We are certainly NOT as badly off in Ireland as people on this thread seem to think we are.

-Practically everyone I've talked to here in Long Island regularly drink and drive and openly admit to doing so,
-A lot of under 21's drive while under the influence of drugs (since they can't get drink)
-NOBODY wears a seatbelt
-Using a mobile while driving isn't illegal (I read an article last week which says there's talk of introducing a ban on texting while driving.)
-Everybody eats while driving, which in ways is as bad as using a mobile while driving.
-I've been told the driving test is so easy here a monkey could pass it. A testament to this is the fact that absolutely everybody out here from the age of 18 seems to have a full license.
-I see a hell of a lot of dangerous driving any time I'm on the roads. I recently got a mini-bus from San Francisco to LA where the bus driver rarely drove under 70 miles per hour, and at one stage reached 85 mph. Even at 85mph we were being passed by; this was on a road with a 55mph limit.

So as I mentioned previously we aren't as badly off as we think!
Having said that, there's always room for improvement so the only changes I would make are (in order of importance)
1 Improve on the general infrastructure, ie roads & signage.
2 Enforce the current laws.
3 Obviously the testing needs to be modernised and improved slightly, and the provisional license debacle needs to be sorted out.

My suggestion is a successful prosecution of dangerous driving where 2 or more witnesses make statements and don't have to appear in court. According to the Trafficwatch report last year( i think) only a third of ppl who complain of dangerous driving will see it thru to court. The main reason is they don't want to take time off work.

scitpo wrote:

Nothing.
Irelands road safety is on par with other European countries. Any deviations from the norm are just a result of our massive system of hedged back roads and those are just a consequence of our history and settlement patterns.
Road deaths are falling as car numbers soar over the last ten years. A lot of this might be attributed to better, safer cars but who can really tell.

I mostly agree with this.
Road safety has become a national obsession in this country - right up there with property prices and Gucci bags. Every Tom, Dick and Harry up on his barstool seems to have some ludicrous idea how it can be improved.

The fact of the matter is - road deaths per population in Ireland are in the better half of the EU league table.
This is against the backdrop of a wholly inadequate and dangerous road network, and a remarkable level of dependence on the private car, which results in the average Irish car doing something like 50% more mileage than its European counterpart.

Sadly, in every walk of life you will meet:
- idiots
- people who make mistakes
The public roadway is no exception.
Until someone finds a way of banishing all idiots from the face of the earth, and eliminating human error while they're at it, the perceived target of zero road deaths will never be achieved.

Any proposed measure to improve road safety needs to be balanced against the cost for the vast majority of us who rely on a car to get from A to B. Quick fixes are not the answer.

Sure, reducing the speed limit to 30km/h in every urban area might improve the stats. But this will also add to the countless number of hours per week we already spend commuting. It will also increase the inefficiency of our already hopeless infrastructure, leading to higher costs, companies moving abroad and lost jobs.

Sure, banishing all provisional drivers from the road with effect from 12 midnight might improve the stats. But, assuming one in four of those drivers have no alternative mode of transport to get to work, the state is going to have to find an extra billion euro per annum to pay their social welfare. Not to mention the billions of lost income tax, PRSI, road tax etc.

Less pontificating by ex-TV show hosts, less glossy books through letterboxes which will never be read, and more money towards building decent roads would go a long way to improving an already reasonable set of road safety figures.