Martin Cullen on Newstalk this morning

Seth Brundle

Did any of you catch Minister Cullen being interviewed on the radio this morning?
He pretty much (predictably) distanced himself from
all of the problems on the roads. In fact at one stage he claimed that the governments policies were having an effect and then it was put to him that if that was the case why were 12 people killed in the last 7 days.
It really was sad to listen to him worm his way out of it.

Heinrich

Are you surprised when you see the way Bertie worms out of his messes?

cassette50

Wanted : Dead or Alive
Serial Killer :
AKA :Martin Cullen believed to be single handley responsible for the death of 12 people over the last season days.;)

It's the government's fault and not the idiots who were driving:rolleyes:

spank_inferno

Martin Cullen can do many things..... but:

Irish Motorists can slow down
Irish Motorists can keep a safe distance from the car in front of them
Irish Motorists can continue to drive without slowing down to rubber-neck
at anything out of the ordinary.
Irish motorists can obey the rules of the road
Irish Parents can control the whereabouts of their children
Irish Parents can control whether their kids are let loose in these souped up death traps or not
Irish Police can pull over these boy racers and do something about them.

The death of 5 young men in Monaghan is a tragedy, but not an accident.
An accident implies that no one could have done anything about it.
Wrong, direct fault lies in many places but most of all with the 2 drivers involved.
The government has a part to play but Cullen isnt all to blame.

Those who think everything that happens is the fault of the government are blatantly ignorant to personal choise!
If I choose to drive dangerously in a dangerous place, then I choose to accept these consequences if it goes wrong.

Martin Cullen wasnt on that road goading the young lads on.

The behaviour of these people didnt cause an accident only an innevitability

dahamsta

Look, it's a thread on motoring that hasn't mentioned "carnage or our roads" or "lethal weapons" yet! :rolleyes: Honest to god, the kneejerk reactions that appear like clockwork after crashes really gets my goat. It's red-top/sky-news reaction at it's very worst. What'll ye be bitching about next week, when all of this is forgotten /again/?

EDIT: Before I get larted for being unsympathetic: I am sympathetic towards the parents and those in crashes that weren't responsible, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth by all and sundry on a schedule driven by crashes gets on my tits. How many of the screaming ninnies on the radio are willing to quote actual statistics, that put Ireland right in the middle of the table in road deaths per capita, and with falling numbers despite major population growth?

Road deaths are a tragedy, but please, let's have some bloody perspective.

adam

Bards

If the Govt were not building new roads, were not introducing speed cameras, were not conducting random breath testing, were not imposing penalty points then you could say the Govt are to blame... but the government are doing all of these things and more, and it is up to all of us (Drivers) to obey the rules of the road and use common sense when driving.

I have been overtaken on blind bends, continuous white lines etc numerous times by drivers who don't care for safe driving and these I bet are the very same drivers calling for Cullens head. :mad:

I have had two accidents in the last 13 years I have been driving and both were not my fault

1. was where a driver was exiting from a side road trying to do a right hand turn when there was a big sign saying "No right hand turns allowed" for the very reason that he tried to get out in front of a truck instead of waiting an extra 20 seconds. and clobbered me. He was 100% at fault and paid up

2. Wheel flew broke off an axle of Nolan Transport truck on the M7 just outside Naas and hit me at 70Mph again truck should have been checked by the transport company and again they paid up

Heinrich

• The government make the laws.
• The Government do not provide enough police to maintain these laws.
• The courts are there to uphold the laws.
• The judges are highly erratic in their judgements.
• Who appoints these judges?
• Why arere simply not mandatory penalties for certain crimes?

And what do we pay the politicians for?

Bards

Heinrich wrote:

• The government make the laws.
• The Government do not provide enough police to maintain these laws.
• The courts are there to uphold the laws.
• The judges are highly erratic in their judgements.
• Who appoints these judges?
• Why arere simply not mandatory penalties for certain crimes?

And what do we pay the politicians for?

mmm all these point to Mr McDowell Minister for Justice not scapegoat Martin Cullen

Heinrich

Bards wrote:

mmm all these point to Mr McDowell Minister for Justice not scapegoat Martin Cullen

In a sense true as these gentlemen are living on two different planets!

They are in fact part of a team who are supposed to be running the show.....

Bards

you have to ask yourself is Dept of Transport doing all it can at the moment for reducing deaths on our road... I would say yes....

however... are other depts pulling their weight and doing their bit...probably not..when you see the lenient sentencing and policing on our roads.

but who gets the blame...why Martin Cullen of course... Now I find this ver illogical to blame the wrong person...becasue all that will happen is that the status quo will prevail and nothing will get done..

letters to McDowell and The Garda commissioner on why they are not policing our roads and why they don't breathalyse those in accidents as a matter of course

SeanW

When it comes to enforcement on the roads, or for serious crimes anywhere, you can't beat Irish judges for utter stupidity and mamby-pambyism.

remember that case a year back when a judge let a man who raped a 50 year old man walk free with a suspended sentence because "he is in a stable relationship now" please don't make me puke.

Or those guys in Westmeath who videotaped themselves racing on the N4 at 194kph? All charges dropped because the judge thought the charge was too severe - i.e. they should have been charged with careless driving instead of reckless driving.

Well if racing at these obscene speeds doesn't qualify as 'reckless' in that judges opinion, I can't for the life in me imagine what does.

Judges who do this kind of thing ought to be fired IMO. but I realise that would have legal and possible constitutional ramifications.

Capt'n Midnight

spank_inferno wrote:

If I choose to drive dangerously in a dangerous place, then I choose to accept these consequences if it goes wrong.

Bollocks.
1 in 7 drivers on our roads have never passed a driving test. In any other country this just would not happen.

Of the rest most passed a test that by international standards is short and easy.

And there is no pressure on drivers to behave, 99% speed on urban link roads. So it's not the odd person.

Also young males are not the best people to leave the decision to choose an acceptable level of risk to others to. To allow them to travel without endangering thier passengers - maybe ban young males driving cars and only let them have motorbikes. With mandatory jail sentences for both if there are any illegal pillion passengers.

Iób

dahamsta wrote:

Look, it's a thread on motoring that hasn't mentioned "carnage or our roads" or "lethal weapons" yet! :rolleyes: Honest to god, the kneejerk reactions that appear like clockwork after crashes really gets my goat. It's red-top/sky-news reaction at it's very worst. What'll ye be bitching about next week, when all of this is forgotten /again/?

EDIT: Before I get larted for being unsympathetic: I am sympathetic towards the parents and those in crashes that weren't responsible, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth by all and sundry on a schedule driven by crashes gets on my tits. How many of the screaming ninnies on the radio are willing to quote actual statistics, that put Ireland right in the middle of the table in road deaths per capita, and with falling numbers despite major population growth?

Road deaths are a tragedy, but please, let's have some bloody perspective.

adam

You want to put road deaths in bloody perspective? You want statistics? How about this (from Autogeddon by Heathcote Williams):

"The new theatre of war
Presents itself as a place of leisured entertainment
But, like some benighted South America stadium,
It conceals an unpublicised death-zone…

Seventeen million dead,
And counting.

More than twice the number in the death-camps.

Eighteen times the count in Korea.

Seventeen Vietnams.

A hundred and thirty times the kill at Hiroshima.

Eight thousand five hundred Ulsters…

The Hundred Years war in a week.
The Crusades in under thirty seconds.
A humdrum holocaust:
The Third World War nobody bothered to declare."

dahamsta

You're quoting a poem at me? Have I slipped off the edge of the earth?

Seth Brundle

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Bollocks.
1 in 7 drivers on our roads have never passed a driving test. In any other country this just would not happen.

I thought it was about 1 in 4 (or possibly 5)