Is my signature offensive?

Victor

What do people think?

other poster wrote:

I think your signature is incredibly offensive. It's not as if An Taoiseach personally ran over all those 3,000 odd people. Or could have done much to prevent those deaths. Road deaths are a tragedy. Not the fault of the Taoiseach of the day.

other poster wrote:

If they wanted, deaths could be down to 200 through education and enforcement. Currently its heading for 395-400.

Penalty points for those few months, cut deaths by 30-40%. Imagine if, instead of 4 offenses, they applied them to the full 61 offenses? If instead of 150 gardaí doing Operation Freeflow for a month, they did it for every month?

I blame Martin, Bertie and Michael. They won't engage in a road safety campaign because they don't want to see the penalty points building up before an election.

Nuttzz

sadly 3580 people are killed on the roads however this can be down to many factors, e.g. heath attack behind the wheel, mechnical failure, as well as the usual DUI, speeding etc. however the 3568 killed in NI were murdered, i.e. someone set out to kill them. You're not comparing like with like IMO.

Maskhadov

Jacque Chirac personally took control of the various agencies and single handedly reduce the carnage on the french roads. We could do something similar here in Ireland.


At the end of the day, the buck stops with bertie. Maybe congratulations is a bad choice of word though

Hagar

I don't think it's offensive. It makes a very good point.
Might I suggest a more accurate perspective would be to show the number of deaths on the roads during the same time period, ie 1969-2005

BTW how many NI road deaths occured during the same period?

SoBe

its in no way offensive.all your doing is stating facts.

Sandals

Hagar wrote:

I don't think it's offensive. It makes a very good point.
Might I suggest a more accurate perspective would be to show the number of deaths on the roads during the same time period, ie 1969-2005

BTW how many NI road deaths occured during the same period?

Hey,Nonsense.

Bertie is not to blame for the eaths preceding his time,

Excellent sig.

John R

It's probably offensive to a rabid FFer but that shouldn't be a yardstick to judge anything by.

It's just fine as far as I'm concerned, as long as politicians concentrate on PR rather than actually dealing with issues then they are more than fair game.

seatleon2000

not bothered

Mucco

In September, Auckland police stopped 10,000 cars for breath testing in one weekend:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=B080C21C-39E4-11DA-8E1B-A5B353C55561

Police catch drink drivers in Auckland blitz

A police campaign against drink driving in Auckland this weekend stopped more than 10,000 vehicles, and netted more than 100 people who tested positive to breath tests. Inspector Dave Walker said Operation Early Bird, conducted by Auckland City Police and the specialist Traffic..

There's no political will in this country for that sort of clamp-down. Mind you, the politicians are our servants, if this sort of policy was popular, you can be sure they'd enact it.

M

Calina

Maskhadov wrote:

Jacque Chirac personally took control of the various agencies and single handedly reduce the carnage on the french roads. We could do something similar here in Ireland.

I'm very impressed with policy in France at the moment. They have, in five years, reduced annual road death figures by around two and a half thousand. Mind you I wouldn't say Jacques Chirac singlehandedly achieved anything.

For anyone who doesn't know anything about French road policy here are some details:

There are 830 speed cameras in France. By the end of this year they plan to have 1000. By the end of next year, they plan to have 1500. Roughly one third of them are mobile police operated - the rest are fixed locations. They are not hidden - and there are signs warning you if you are approaching cameras. There are also maps on government websites showing you where the fixed cameras are located. In other words, you have no excuse.

There's a mixture of fines and points in the penalty scheme.

Since this programme was put in place, roughly 3.8million drivers have been caught speeding. Roughly 10% try to appeal, and if you can prove you were not in the car (usually via the photo that is taken), you're okay. They don't welcome spurious appeals.

Since this programme was put in place, road deaths have fallen significantly. Five years ago it came in at 7720 deaths per year. This year the figure is likely to be below 5000.

But they're not happy. They're not happy with the number of people driving without a licence (so they've instigated a loan scheme to enable young people to get interest free loans to pay for driving tuition). They're not happy with the numbers failing breathalyser tests. They're not happy with the disproportionate number of young people dying on the roads. And they are not happy with the fatality rate for motorcyclists (nineteen times higher than for other drivers). So they're not really complacent.

If I thought we could do the same here without someone popping up trying to prove it was unconstitutional or something I'd say go for it. Already I'd like the speed cameras to be more obvious and more ubiquitous.

******

regards the sig - not necessarily to my taste but it doesn't bother me.

Fighting Irish

who cares get on with life

SeanW

couldn't give a toss. sig is fine.

Karl Hungus

I can't imagine anyone who would be offended by that sig, aside from certain political bodies, who quite frankly couldn't give a rats ass about deaths on the road, as their only after their own agenda. I've had a very good friend who died in a car crash fairly recently and all I can say is tell it like it is. You have a very good point to make, and you should make it, despite whatever goober would tell you it's "Offensive!"

D'Peoples Voice

Victor wrote:

What do people think?

I've no problem with it!

If someone wanted to be argumentative,
they could say thousands die of suicide in Ireland each year,
is this also Bertie's fault?

But ask yourself how many people who die on our roads do so because of their own stupidity, drink-driving, speeding or joyriding! These are decisions individuals take, do we need a nanny state to tell us right from wrong.
If and I can never see it happeneing, but if people were responsible, we wouldn't have such a serious problem. So therefore we should ask ourselves is it Bertie's fault that some of us are irresponsible!

Hundreds were being affected by smoking related diseases each year,
Bertie and the other jokers in government introduced stronger legislation in this area? But is this the nanny state? Have we not to accept some responsibility!

ciaran76

I think its to the point. No harm in telling people how it is.

Sleipnir

It's like all Irish governments;
"Do whatever you like, but whatever you do, do nothing"
Lot's of talk about what to do but no action.

Victor's sig is reality so I don't know how it could be offensive.

sliabh

The headline number of fatalities is hardly the most indicative measure of road safety. Over a period where there has been a massive increase in car ownership and journeys made then just giving a bald total fatalities number is not enough.

The real measure or road safety is the fatalities per car km travelled or something similar. And then it has to be benchmarked against what is managed in other countries.

The last comparison numbers I saw were for fatalities per thousand drivers (which doesn't take into account how much a car is used) and that had us about the middle of the pack, with the UK as one of the best in Europe. The Greeks and Portugeuse were the worst.

So I don't think Victor's number is in poor taste as much as it is misleading.

CiaranC

Anyone else drive around seeing these signs - 'there have been '65' deaths on these roads in the last 4 years? Im thinking 50000 cars must go up and down here every week, I like those odds!

Nuttzz

Sleipnir wrote:

Victor's sig is reality so I don't know how it could be offensive.

True, but there is a difference between the victims of the enniskillen bombing and a drunk pedestrian stepping out in front of a car.

kwinabeeste

I was gonna PM ya about this recently...I find it totally offensive and i think it compares apples and moon rocks to be honest. Bertie didn't cause any of the deaths.

Road deaths are falling in Ireland since 1997 (472) to 378 for 2005 to date drop by almost 20%. The highest number of deaths was in 1972 and 640 people died that year. To put that into perspective, there wasn't as many cars or people using them to commute long distances as we have 2day, yet the number have almost halved. Why?

http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statistics98/rtastats_longterm.html

This is not due to the government either, but due to safer cars, less acceptance of drink driving in most places and perhaps "better roads". But from what I have read in the papers most of the deaths from accidents happen on quieter country roads than the primary and secondary roads that haven't been upgraded as there is less use on these roads. They sometimes happen at nite as well which drink may be a factor. The National safety council and similar bodies are trying to educate over the dangers of drink driving.

cil_aine

yea it's fine, prooves a good point, and theres nothing wrong with expressing your views. he is, as the leader of the country accountable for nearly everything. if his government aren't doing enough to bring accidents down, he has to have a kick up the ass about it.

elexes

i think your sig is fine . nothing wrong with it .

keep up the good work

ignore the people that dont have better things to solve in there life