The carnage is accelerating

Diaspora

Tipperary crash brings road death toll to 200

30 June 2006 11:12
The death of a man in a car crash in Co Tipperary this morning brings to 200 the number of people killed on the country's roads in the first six months of this year.

That figure is up 19 on the same period last year.

When will the hard decisions be taken to give safe drivers a safe road?

अधिनायक

No cash or management to improve driver education or enforcement = 400 deaths per year.

Alun

Whilst not wanting to make light of the situation, all this "up 19 on the same period last year" stuff is a little misleading. So, now it's 19 up on last year .. so what? Look at the previous years stats and you'll see they go up and down like a yoyo, with some months having only half the number of road deaths one year compared to all the others. Just because it's 19 up now, says absolutely nothing about what will happen in the next 6 months.

Plus, one very important point, road deaths are only a small part of the overall story. Whilst they make good headlines, what about all the serious debilitating, life changing injuries that mysteriously never get reported?

Diaspora

I agree that there may be some variances in the figures month on month as climatic conditions differ but there have been frequent press releases launching new initiative after new initiative and yet reconciled year end figures are rising and not declining

The only view I can take on the reason for the increases is that it is because those charged with implementing the 'initiaitives' are not given the resources to do so effectively.

Bards

But.. Isn't it also the responsibility of each and every driver to drive safely and keep within a speed that he/she can control their vehicle and bring it to a safe stop within the distance that he/she can see in front of them.

The Speed limit is not a target.

If everybody drove with care there would be less of a need for enforcement. You cannot blame the government for how we drive, that is up to each and everyone of us. Society in general needs a change in attitude to Speeding as we have done to Drink Driving.

jman0

They should really be more forthcoming with information.
In how many of these accidents was drink a factor?
Or suspected to be a factor?
Speed?
Were people wearing seatbelts?
Like that baby that died in Cork, was he strapped into one of those car seats (god i can't even remember the name of those yokes)
If so, did his injuries result from the straps?
Or maybe he wasn't strapped in at all.
Who knows?

Alun

I'd also like to know the number of incidents involving fatalaties. Citing the number of fatalities itself doesn't really tell us much about the trend in the number of accidents, since this is obviously linked to the number of occupants in the vehicles involved which isn't really an indicator of anything really.

अधिनायक

Bards wrote:

But.. Isn't it also the responsibility of each and every driver to drive safely and keep within a speed that he/she can control their vehicle and bring it to a safe stop within the distance that he/she can see in front of them.

Yes, but sometimes centralised rules are more effective than individual actions. eg Plastic bag tax.

If everybody drove with care there would be less of a need for enforcement. You cannot blame the government for how we drive, that is up to each and everyone of us. Society in general needs a change in attitude to Speeding as we have done to Drink Driving.

Hundreds of thousands of drivers have never passed a test. Tens of thousands of others have full licences gained in an amnesty without sitting a test. They don't know how to drive correctly even if they had a change of attitude.

The test itself is completely outdated, far too easy and inconsistent across testers and test centres.

The chances of being caught for drink driving or speeding are next to nil.

If you think we have a far higher accident rate than the UK or the Netherlands merely because of an attitude problem, how would you propose that this attitude can change? More road accident snuff movie ads? A national epiphany?

अधिनायक

Percentage annual increase in Road deaths since 1992:

Year	Change	Fatalities
2005	6.7%	399
2004	11.6%	374
2003	-10.9%	335
2002	-8.5%	376
2001	-7.6%	411
2000	7.2%	445
1999	-3.7%	415
1998	6.7%	431
1997	-7.6%	404
1996	-3.5%	437
1995	-4.0%	453
1994	3.1%	472
1993	10.9%	458
1992	-0.5%	413

Hotblack Desiato

What about the huge increase in vehicles on the roads in the last few years?

अधिनायक

What about the fact that despite our car ownership rate being lower than the UK we have a fatal accident rate per capita 75% higher than the UK? Why is this?

If we got our accident rate down to the UK level we would save 171 lives every year. Why is this not worth pursuing?

Gurgle

jman0 wrote:

They should really be more forthcoming with information.
In how many of these accidents was drink a factor?
Or suspected to be a factor?
Speed?
Were people wearing seatbelts?
Like that baby that died in Cork, was he strapped into one of those car seats (god i can't even remember the name of those yokes)
If so, did his injuries result from the straps?
Or maybe he wasn't strapped in at all.
Who knows?

When its reported, its all 'A man was killed at 3am this morning when his car went out of control', 'A car hit a tree and killed its driver', 'A van subdued its driver with chloroform and went on a rampage'.:rolleyes:

Wishbone Ash

jman0 wrote:

Like that baby that died in Cork, was he strapped into one of those car seats (god i can't even remember the name of those yokes)
If so, did his injuries result from the straps?
Or maybe he wasn't strapped in at all.
Who knows?

A child-seat was clearly visible on the news footage but that dosen't mean the child was using it.

Hotblack Desiato

अधिनाय&#2325 wrote:

What about the fact that despite our car ownership rate being lower than the UK we have a fatal accident rate per capita 75% higher than the UK?

Rates are significant, absolute figures are not, that was the point I was trying to make.

Why is this?

We all know why this is. Education, engineering, enforcement, but IMHO our worst failing is education. Driver testing and training is a complete shambles. Many people simply have no idea how to drive safely and within the law.

If we got our accident rate down to the UK level we would save 171 lives every year. Why is this not worth pursuing?

I think everyone here believes this is very well worth pursuing, but worth pursuing enough to put up the cost of a licence or a driving test or a litre of petrol? Maybe.
Worth pursuing enough to make it an election issue - definitely not.
The government stands to lose 400,000 votes if they start to do anything about provisional licences driving unaccompanied.

Hotblack Desiato

Wishbone Ash wrote:

A child-seat was clearly visible on the news footage but that dosen't mean the child was using it.

Or that it fitted the car, or was fitted correctly.
This is why everyone removes them before the NCT...

dowlingm

over here you can go to the cop shop and they will check your car seat install for you and show you how to fit it properly if not already.

loyatemu

ninja900 wrote:

Or that it fitted the car, or was fitted correctly.
This is why everyone removes them before the NCT...

eh?

you're required to have your seatbelts visible and working for the NCT - this is why you have to remove any child seats.

daymobrew

loyatemu wrote:

eh?

you're required to have your seatbelts visible and working for the NCT - this is why you have to remove any child seats.

You could possibly read the Preparing for the NCT page both ways.

Preparing for the NCT wrote:

It is not necessary to remove baby seats, however, if they are in situ, they will be inspected for security and may fail.

nollaig

A little off topic, But do any of YE actually speed?

loyatemu

fair enough - i missed that bit

the quality of childseats varies wildly and there's no way of knowing if a particular seat will fit your car without testing it first - its a minefield. there is a standard fitting called isofix which anchors the seat to the body of the car but many cars don't have the fittings the the seats themselves are very expensive.

ButtermilkJack

अधिनाय&#2325 wrote:

...Hundreds of thousands of drivers have never passed a test. Tens of thousands of others have full licences gained in an amnesty without sitting a test. They don't know how to drive correctly even if they had a change of attitude.

The test itself is completely outdated, far too easy and inconsistent across testers and test centres.

The chances of being caught for drink driving or speeding are next to nil...

Bingo! When I hear of judges overturning speeding and drink-driving convictions because of 'legal technicalities' I really feel sick. Wasn't it a case recently where one judge threw out over 40 cases from his court in one day (or week?). How the hell are people going to be taught a lesson when we have incompetence in the courts.

Aside from the more serious issues like speeding/drink-driving, I have personally witnessed a HUGE amount of drivers who don't know how to follow road signs/lane markings etc. Knowing how to physically drive a car is one thing, but the amount of people who don't know what lane to be in on a roundabout, or when to indicate to come off etc, etc, is very frightening.

I don't mean to generalise, but from 'my' experience, the majority of these drivers are of the same age group. Those which got their licence in the post without sitting a test. What kind of a country allows people in a machine as deadly as a car without ever having proved their competency. This includes learner drivers!! It's truly frightening to be on the roads knowing there is someone out there who could end your life in a second.

Diaspora

Police only make mistakes when they lack the resources to implement policies and there have been more than enough policies and judges must uphold the law as in force and not what they consider personally right.

Where are the 1000 extra Gaurds we were promised?

Where is the dedicated traffic police we were promised?

Where are the speed cameras that actually take pictures?

When will analytical equipemnt be introduced that actually complies with the law arrive?

halkar

While government has a lot to do for road safety they will have to come up with few ideas to educate the increasing number of non-nationals coming to Ireland with their cars. Few months ago almost quarter of the road deads were non-nationals. Not sure where do they fit in this 200 now but that quarter is worrying and more likely to increase in the coming years when more and more motorists from mainland starts coming.

अधिनायक

is there any proof of this 25% figure?

Diaspora

Anecdotal evidence would certainly suggest it from RTE news reports but from those same reports it would appear that many of those killed are from Eastern Europe as opposed to non-EU nationals

halkar

It was on the news few months ago. RTE has the list here http://www.rte.ie/news/features/roadsafety/list.html but does not have nationalities beside them as it was shown on the tv at the time.

अधिनायक

That link lists 190 of the 200 deaths this year. RTE say names are omitted where they don't have the family's permission or can't get the name.

Of the 190, I count 29 with non-Irish sounding names. Some of these may be second generation immigrants. This is a total of 15%.

Am I missing something?