reporting of motor accidents

grumpytrousers

Just in the aftermath of that news story of the two lads in Roscommon who died when their car went off the road, and the other two lads injured...it got me thinking.

Do we need to, or should we, consider the way that such matters are reported? There's no doubting that there seems to be a sod of a lot of careless driving going on. I'm not saying it was the case with the Roscommon incident, but certainly if you wanted to number crunch the demographics/roads/car types it seems that there's a higher proportion of incidents happening on 'b' roads, in fancier cars with younger drivers.

I'm not saying the media should be completely heartless in the reportage of such incidents; there's no doubting that families are grief stricken and that nobody needs sermonising or finger pointing at the time, but does the traditional RTE way of reporting these things -

a) interview with the parish priest/local headmaster saying they were lovely young lads
b) call by some local person saying that the road is shocking and that something should be done about it...

really do anybody any favours? Perhaps the former allows a certain amount of human interest, or whatever, but does it add to the reporting of the story; i'm not sure we need somebody to say 'the family are gutted' - i mean, you'd bloody expect that right.

As for the state of the road, which more often than not gets mentioned - if a stretch of road is dangerous, then one should be careful. Even if it's not dangerous, one should still be careful. Entering my own bloody driveway is dangerous if i try and take it at 50 mph...so i don't do it.

I honestly think that the time is right for somebody somewhere to stand up and say 'look, these are tragedies, but they're preventable, and if people are only going to learn from the mistakes of poor unfortunates before them, then so be it'.

and that brings me to the other thing; if the Gardai do, for example, an investigation into the Roscommon incident and see that the yellow car was doing, y'know, 80mph or whatever on that wee road, then dammit, when that information is known then it should be made public. I want to see NiBheolain and Dobson kicking off the six one news with:-

"it has emerged that the car which was involved in an incident in xyz last month/year was travelling at x mph over the speed limit on a whatever style road" and so on

I dunno why i'm posting this...we've almost managed to make gobsh*tes who drink and drive the pariahs they are...but there's a distinct 'advantage' the Gardai have in enforcing that kinda thing insofar as they have the ability to, well, prevent it happening by having a checkpoint in town and either

a) bagging and putting off the road
b) frightening the bejaysus out of people who otherwise would have driven

and either way, lives are quite possibly saved.

In the cases of this dangerous driving which *seems* to be so prevalent on the roads, it seems that there's little that can be done from a preventative side, is there? I mean, if every Garda in the country was out on a speed trap on the country back roads, there'd still be accidents, so i think this is a campaign that has to be fought a different way, and perhaps the media have a role to play in it.

Anybody have any thoughts....not even sure if this is the right forum, but it's been getting my goat for months now and i just had to say it!

*edit* meant to head this as reporting of motor 'incidents' but not sure would that work; an accident is, however, something that's unforeseen...i've me doubts about a lot of these tragedies...

r3nu4l

I totally agree with you grumpytrousers! Unfortunately, the media do very little follow-up on these cases and it's usually only in inquests that this kind of information (speed of cars involved etc.) is revealed. At that time, the story has usually gone 'cold'.

There is also the thought that reporting the speeds that the cars were doing could be perceived as saying "they deserved it". It's easier to demonise a drink driver than a "young lad with his whole life ahead of him, cut-off in his prime".

I really do think that we have to demonise speeding to some extent and the media certainly does have a role to play. Drink-driving used to be a national pasttime, these days thanks to the media combined with government initiatives, drink-driviers are considered to be selfish, dangerous, inconsiderate criminals/fools.

seamus

I suggested before that people who died, or killed another person while drinking and driving, should be named by the Gardai.

I think it got shot down. With a few more years under my belt, I can see that the suggestion is perhaps not all that feasible. After all, there's not much use in upsetting a grieving family and dead people don't care what people say about them.
I also can't see the threat of, "They might say I was drinking" to be much of a threat to the people who do these kinds of things.

I would however like to see (in law) a number of mandatory tests that the Gardai/Forensics must carry out on all drivers involved in serious and fatal accidents, dead or alive, at the scene.

This would enable us to get a clear statistical analysis of:
1. No of dead drivers who were over the limit
2. No of drivers who killed someone while over the limit.
3. 1 & 2 for other intoxicants consumed
4. 1 & 2 for prescription intoxicants consumed (and the types of intoxicants)

Then the Gardai publish these results each year.

And so forth. It would allow for a much more concerted and transparent road safety strategy.

silverharp

grumpytrousers wrote:

Do we need to, or should we, consider the way that such matters are reported?

from a national news angle the stories are a bit repetitive and boring because they aint of national interest, but short of filming the fire brigade cutting them out I can't see how the style of reporting can change. they used to read the list of the dead out at the end of the month which seemed a good idea but that seems to have stopped now.
if you want to reduce road deaths every teenager should have a tour of the rehabilitation hospital in Dublin, or collect the vehicles up and have an exhibition with family videos etc.

Keith186

Mostly agree with OP. A lot of accidents would be related to bad driving obviously. You can drive faster than the speed limit safely but it's there for a reason. A lot more needs to be taken into consideration ie you don't know whats arounnd the corner etc. More light needs to be shed on the nature of these accidents such as drink/drugs or excessive speeding involved, some mothers etc can see this on the news and know their son has a few pints or rallies the Evo around on the weekend and if its highlighted in the news they may say something to their kids to slow down or leave the car at home or whaever. I'd say more media insight would be good but insensitive overall but if it could save a life or two without going OTT it might be worth it

Hack

i agree and I know people who work in the media who also agree, but the problem is that gardai do not readily make this information available - especially when reporters need it, which is ASAP after the incident. Gardai don't even tell reporters if the seatbelts appears to have been used. from their point of view a full probe has to be done first so that they don't get it wrong, but sometimes they do make an effort to find these details out. News dies with time, but when the inquests come up, which can be up to a year later, these details are revealed - and often reported, though their coverage is not as punchy as current hard news. And a national news reporter is not likely to chance his or her time at an inquest that has just an RTA up for hearing - unless there is something very interesting or shocking about it.

Firetrap

Interesting thoughts. As it so happens, in the case of the Roscommon crash a newspaper printed an article which revealed that before the crash, the guards had warned the driver to slow down. I don't know if this is true or not but that's what I saw in a paper. Don't ask me which one though - I can't remember.

It does bother me that there are an awful lot of people driving recklessly on the roads but I don't think changing the way accidents are reported will do a lot. I think compiling statistics will only tell us what we already know. To be honest, the only way road deaths/accidents will ever fall is if there is sufficient policing of the roads 24 hours a day. And that's not going to happen. Appalling driving is ingrained in the culture now, sad to say.

ednwireland

i agree with OP i've thought for a long time that all these accidents at 3am in the morning have more to do with bad driving we've just had a spate of accidents where young guys killed themselves by driving too fast. one guy in a scooby (19) wrecked the car so badly you couldnt even recognise the car afterwards. people who you just said yeh bound to happen guy was a head case didnt read the papers apart from some letters saying something should be done. well apart from stopping every male driving until they are 30 ? i dont know. there is no police enforcing traffic on the roads at that time of day they are all in the towns sorting out fighting drunks.

Mr. Presentable

I agree with the OP. We need to be told the full circumstances of the crash, and to hell with relatives sensitivities. If they were, drunk, drugged, speeding, wearing seatbelts, or whatever, it is relevant and might caution another driver.

Yesterday I read a UK story about two lads who got off lightly when their four female passengers were killed. The story focused on the damage done to the girl's families and community, and as an aside mentioned that the lads were only slightly injured in the crash and had been wearing seat belts, whereas the girls were all thrown from the car. The reporting is therefore no better there. The point should have been "wear a seatbelt"

odyssey06

And what was the speed limit on the road? You have dual carriageways that you could land a plane on that have lower speed limits than those unlit backroads. Who sets the speed limits? Who enforces the speed limits? Who maintains those roads?

This is an equation which has many elements - the government\council, the Gardai, the judiciary and the drivers. And until all are pulling their weight, we are going to have preventable accidents and preventable deaths.

Nobody driving a car is 100% safe. Well-lit, well-maintained roads with properly-enforced speed limits are necessary to reduce road deaths - and so is careful driving.

And when the Gardai spot someone driving dangerously, they need to do more than tell them to slow down - and the judges need to back them up when the case comes to court.