Speeding/Drink Driving Kills

Fighting Irish

We see this day in day out in our newspapers/tv etc

I believe its stupid people who kill, not drink driving and speed.
Anyone agree?


Also i think should "common sense" questions should be added to the driver theory test/full license test. Remarks?

L1011

Drink driving = undoubtably dangerous
Speeding = nowhere near as clear cut

You CANNOT be a safe driver when drunk. You can be safe at speeds above posted limits on certain roads..

Fighting Irish

MYOB wrote: »

Drink driving = undoubtably dangerous
Speeding = nowhere near as clear cut

You CANNOT be a safe driver when drunk. You can be safe at speeds above posted limits on certain roads..

You're getting me a bit mixed up, drunk drivers(or people who drink and drive at all) = stupid people

pete4130

It's simple that people who choose to speed or to drink & drive are stupid.

Without speeding or drink driving there are just genuinely stupid people out there who will make some hairbrained manouvre that can cause someone else to crash resulting in injuries/deaths.

Granted our country doesn't have the greatest infrastructure regarding road networks but I'm sure almost everyone who uses a motorway or dual carriageway on a daily basis sees someone speeding every time they are on the road. It makes sense to conclude that a speeding driver has less time to react to a hazard, in turn means they do not have as much control over their vehicle (to stop or avoid) an incident happening which would logically make them have a higher risk of being involved in an accident.

IF an accident were to happen involving a speeding car then the damage would be increased by their extra speed (and maybe they wouldn't be involved in an accident in the first place if they hadn't been speeding as they would have had more time to react). The greater force of the speeding car will inherently increase the chances of serious injury/death to anyone involved.

I do agree with MYOB that it is possible to be relatively safe at speeds above those posted on certain roads if the speeds aren't excessive of the limits.

I think alot of the answers in the theory test are common sense when you think about them.

Armin_Tamzarian

Drink driving, speeding and stupid people doing stupid things could be viewed as three different causes of accidents.

Obviously the more drunk you are the more likely you are to cause an accident if you drive.
Drunk drivers are not necessarily stupid people.
We've all seen that people from all walks of life drink drive,
teachers, police, priests, judges, unemployed, farmers, etc.

I'd say that drink driving is the No. 1 cause of accidents.

Speeding is different, the skill of the driver has to be taken into consideration.
A young inexperienced driver is going to pose a serious danger if they speed but if it's say an experienced rally driver who is doing the same speed then the danger posed is way less.
I'm sure I remember a few years back where a high profile driver (Jenson Button I think) was got doing well over 100MPH.
The defence argued that beacuse they were such a highly trained / skilled driver that they could safely drive a car at such speed.
They ended up getting a much smaller penalty than the norm.

Stupid drivers cause accidents by doing things like pulling out without looking, tailgating, etc.
Generally these accidents occur at lower speeds and aren't as serious.

pete4130

Yes, you are right, all walks of life choose to make the stupid decision of drinking and driving and I'll agree with you that peole that do choose to drink and drive aren't necessarily stupid people on a day-to-day basis.

I don't think the point is the skill or experience of the driver. If you are going faster it is undeniable that your stopping distances are greater, the damage you can cause is greater, your reaction times are less effective and the chances of an accident are increased. There is no argument against that. I wonder what % of the cars on the roads are driven by rally drivers?

I think it' more to do with where and how people are speeding. Regularly you see people speeding on motorways up and down to the North for example, yellow reg's maybe? The chances of them having an accident are increased by their speeding but it's also relative to the type of road they are on.

Someone doing 170kph on a motorway (over 30% faster than they should be going) with no oncoming traffic, everyone moving at what should be a constant and regular speed with a good road surface and a good field of view.
Compare that that someone doing 110kph on a country road that has a speed limit of 80kph where you can't see very far ahead of you, the land is undulating, frequent corners, oncoming traffic that may also be doing 110kph. It wouldn't matter if you were the the best Rally driver in the world if you hit an oncoming car that was going 60kph. It would be carnage.

Armin_Tamzarian wrote: »

Stupid drivers cause accidents by doing things like pulling out without looking, tailgating, etc.
Generally these accidents occur at lower speeds and aren't as serious.

There is nothing that can be done about stupid drivers unfortunately but you've even mentioned that accidents at lower speeds are generally not as serious.

I'm not trying to be argumentative with you Armin by quoting you. I'm just trying to put across that I believe speed is a contributing factor to more serious accidents. An accident at a lower speed will be less destructive than if the exact same accident had happened involving higher speeds.

Getting back OT, the decisions people make regarding speeding and drink driving are ultimately stupid decisions.

Cookie_Monster

pete4130 wrote: »

It's simple that people who choose to speed ....are stupid.

I do agree with MYOB that it is possible to be relatively safe at speeds above those posted on certain roads if the speeds aren't excessive of the limits.

So you think people who speed are stupid, yet you agree with speeding?!

5kph or 100kph over the limit, its still speeding (Technically anyway)

seamus

Breaking the speed limit doesn't cause many accidents.

ninty9er

seamus wrote: »

Breaking the speed limit doesn't cause many accidents.

OF course this is true on our N and M roads, but less true of our R and L roads. 2+1 roads are now being phased out to make way for a full programme of dual-carriageway which will inevitably make roads safer with the re-enforced central margins

seamus

Well, unfortunately we don't have any actual statistics on where breaking the speed limit caused an accident - there's no counter in a car that says how fast you were going when you hit the wall. The Gardai can only guess based on the crash and any eyewitnesses. Even then, the definition is "exceeded the safe speed". The "safe speed" isn't necessarily the speed limit - many R and L roads have speed limits of 80 or 100km/h which isn't remotely safe to travel at on these roads.
Ultimately in only 11.5% of all fatal accidents in 2005, was "exceeded the safe speed" cited as a contributory factor. Still a largish number of accidents, but nothing approaching the numbers of deaths which occur due to improper overtaking or people simply wiping themselves out in a single-vehicle collision - probably through fatigue, alcohol or suicide.

DonJose

MYOB wrote: »

Drink driving = undoubtably dangerous
Speeding = nowhere near as clear cut

You CANNOT be a safe driver when drunk. You can be safe at speeds above posted limits on certain roads..

Read the following PSNI report about road deaths in NI, speeding is the main cause of road deaths in Northern Ireland.

Principal Factor.............................Number of Injury Collisions....Killed....Seriously Injured....Slightly Injured....Total Casualties
Inattention...................................977.................................8.........113......................1448.................1569
Excessive speed............................612.................................40........265......................810..................1115

http://www.psni.police.uk/5._injury_road_traffic_collisions_and_casualties.pdf

--amadeus--

Getting good stats on this through the media is very, very difficult as any data released is usually being spun one way or another by someone with a vested interest. Have a look at this though if you want the raw information.

In 2000 (latest I could find this form of breakdown for):

- 1945 of 7757 accidents involved at least one young driver (17-24)
- A higher % of accidents involving young drivers were fatal
- The fatality rate for young drivers was higher than any other age group
- Young driver fatality was 10 times higher for males than females
- Young motorcyclists accounted for 51% of motorbike fatalities
- The % of accidents in which the young driver is deemed responible rises the more serious the accident - 83% for fatal, 70% for serious and 55% for minor. In other words they are mainly responsible and teh more serious the crash the more likley they are to be at fault
- The responsiblity rate is higher for drivers on a provisional than those with a full licence. In a table provisional licence holders at all ages and sexes are signifigantly more likley to be resonsible for accidents
- The most common cause for young driver accidents is excessive speed
- The most common time for young driver accidents? 3am Sunday morning - draw your own conclusions!

Speed and alcohol are dangerous. Far more dangerous is inexperience, which leads to bad decision making. which leads to excessive speed / drink driving. The steps to eradicate unsupervised provisional licence holders is long overdue but a comprehensive overhaul of the teaching and testing methods coupled with a look at restricted licences for those who have recently passed thier tests is important if road deathes are going to drop.

E92

As usual, we have people assuming that speeding is the big problem, when of course nothing could be father from the truth.


There have been countless surveys done in the UK, the BBC and the Daily Telegraph did ones recently, and surprise surprise they found rthat speeding was responsible for wait for it..... just 4.5 or 7 % of all fatalities on the road, depending on which one you want to read or believe. The UK's own Department for Transport even admits that speeeding causes just 5% of deaths on their roads.

Now the question must surely be what is causing the other 93-95.5% of accidents?

I bet none of the anti speed lobby have ever been in germany have travelled on the Autobahns in Germany with no speed limit. I have. It is a fascinating experience. When people drive properly like they do in Germany, speeding is not a problem at all, in fact the German Government has done studies to show, the most recent one being in 2005 that Autobahns without a speed limit are no more dangerous to drive on than those with a speed limit. Not even slightly. The only reason the Germans are talking about blanket speed limits on their Autobahns is because of climate change. But they have found that even if they did have blanket limits, the CO2 emissions wopuld only be reduced by 2.5 million tonnes a year. We pollute 70 million in the same period, and our emissions amount to 7 seconds on a 24 hour clock as out Tánaiste once said before the election.

I'm not denying that speeding isn't a problem, but there are much more serious problems on our roads than that because the Irish in general have a very cavalier attitude towards driving and obeying the rules of the road anyway.

People always going into yellow boxes, people blow their horns at you for not driving into them, people ignoring traffic lights, thinking that indicating gives them a right to bargeinto a new lane etc, these are all problems, but I never hear anyone talking about doing anything about these.

seamus

E92 wrote: »

I'm not denying that speeding isn't a problem, but there are much more serious problems on our roads than that because the Irish in gweneral have a very caviler attitude towards driving and obeying the rules of the road anyway.

I think the main problem in the media is that they (and the RSA) fail to draw a distinction between breaking the speed limit and driving with excessive speed. When speed cameras go up they bang on about road safety and saving lives, despite there being no published or examined link between speed limit obedience and road deaths.

Sticking a speed camera up to stop people going over 100km/h on a dual carriageway will not prevent people doing 80km/h on a wet and oily regional road, only wide enough to accomodate one vehicle.

We need to address the issue of driving without due regard for the conditions - the next time you're driving in heavy rain, fog or snow, watch the amount of people driving like idiots.

E92

seamus wrote: »

I think the main problem in the media is that they (and the RSA) fail to draw a distinction between breaking the speed limit and driving with excessive speed. When speed cameras go up they bang on about road safety and saving lives, despite there being no published or examined link between speed limit obedience and road deaths.

Sticking a speed camera up to stop people going over 100km/h on a dual carriageway will not prevent people doing 80km/h on a wet and oily regional road, only wide enough to accomodate one vehicle.

We need to address the issue of driving without due regard for the conditions - the next time you're driving in heavy rain, fog or snow, watch the amount of people driving like idiots.

+1. Couldn't have said it better myself.

daveharnett

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Also i think should "common sense" questions should be added to the driver theory test/full license test. Remarks?

Doubt it'd make any difference. Most people can figure out correct answers to common sense questions. Another thing entirely to actually apply such common sense on the road.

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I believe its stupid people who kill, not drink driving and speed.
Anyone agree?

I'd rephrase. I think that it's stupid driving that kills. Even normal intelligent people do stupid things every day. Good drivers just don't do them behind the wheel.

Stupid driving would include driving faster than the conditions permit, regardless of what the legal limit happens to be.

For me, the most dangerous activity i regularly see is dangerous overtaking. While I don't condone it under any circumstances, I do think that some slow drivers do lack consideration for other road users. When I am on an unfamiliar road, I regularly pull over to allow following traffic to overtake safely. I really think that others should do the same. Tractors and bangers doing 50kph on a road that permits 100kph and refusing to give way are really inviting others to drive dangerously imo.

--amadeus--

100% agree on driving without regard to the conditions. I was driving back from Dublin in heavy rain with poor visability the other day and teh number of people bombing up the outside lane with no lights on and at high speed was scary.

It all comes back to driver education. You cannot give someone experience but a well trained driver will be more likely to make appropriate decisions. There is also an argument for compulsary re-testing, either periodically, at a certain age or after a ban to maintain driving standards.

jmayo

The old mantra of "speed kills" is so easy to fire out there.

No it should be "inappropriate speed for the conditions can kill".

I know lots of bumpy, bendy road sections where the posted speed limit is 100kph or 80 kph and where you cannot safely go above 50/60 kph.
Yet some do to try to drive at the posted speed limit.
They are not breaking the law but they are driving dangerously.
Add rain on greasy roads or ice to this scenario and the appropriate speed would be even less.

By chanting the speed kills mantra it is a cop out.
It ignores the fact that some of our roads are pathetic and populated by eejits either going too slow or too fast for the conditions i.e. poor quality of driving.

Some people are complaining on these forums that those that drive at 110/120 kph on Naas dual carriageway with good road/weather conditions are a menace and going to kill everyone. Thus they reason why should they the ultra safe driver move out of overtaking lane.
Yes they are technically breaking the law by going over the 100kph, but I would rather see that than some eejit trying to take bend at posted speed limit when patently you would need to be Sebastin Loeb in a Citroen to do it safely.

The number of things you see on our road network astounds me and often it is from the so-called safe drivers who drive at or usually below the speed limit.

pete4130

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

So you think people who speed are stupid, yet you agree with speeding?!

5kph or 100kph over the limit, its still speeding (Technically anyway)

My comment doesn't agree with speeding at all. I simply said "I do agree with MYOB that it is possible to be relatively safe at speeds above those posted on certain roads if the speeds aren't excessive of the limits.
My point there if you weren't able to see it yourself, was that the driving above the posted limits on certain roads (M & N roads) can be relatively safe if they are not excessive. If the goverment decided to increase the speed limit marginally on some roads by 5-10% it would not significantly increase the danger of these roads. Therefor these roads can be driven on safely above their posted lmits.


Where does it say I agree with speeding? At no time did I condone speeding or breaking the legal speed limit.
Next time it would help if you read what people post and understand it before quoting them.

afatbollix

good thread

would love to make a documentry on this subject.. but dont have time or contacts

L1011

DonJose wrote: »

Read the following PSNI report about road deaths in NI, speeding is the main cause of road deaths in Northern Ireland.

Principal Factor.............................Number of Injury Collisions....Killed....Seriously Injured....Slightly Injured....Total Casualties
Inattention...................................977.................................8.........113......................1448.................1569
Excessive speed............................612.................................40........265......................810..................1115

http://www.psni.police.uk/5._injury_road_traffic_collisions_and_casualties.pdf

Because Northern Irish roads are not up to the speeds at which people drive on them. Many "A" roads are S2 or poor quality D2AP, the latter of which the speed limit is already 70mph on, and yet the average running speed is often closer to 85mph, and 100mph after dark.

The days of NI having better roads than us is gone. Drive the R132 to the border and the A1/A101/M1/A1 to Belfast and tell me which is actually the safer road... I'm not even going to try to compare their mess to the M1 we have.

DonJose

E92 wrote: »

There have been countless surveys done in the UK, the BBC and the Daily Telegraph did ones recently, and surprise surprise they found rthat speeding was responsible for wait for it..... just 4.5 or 7 % of all fatalities on the road, depending on which one you want to read or believe. The UK's own Department for Transport even admits that speeeding causes just 5% of deaths on their roads.

Page 7 of the following report paints a different picture,

http://www.psni.police.uk/5._injury_road_traffic_collisions_and_casualties.pdf

From the same report Page 3,

"The most common causes of injury collisions in 2006/07 were ‘inattention’ (977 collisions), ‘excessive speed having regard to conditions’ (612 collisions) and ‘emerging from a minor road/driveway without care’ (583 collisions)."

L1011

DonJose wrote: »

Page 7 of the following report paints a different picture,

http://www.psni.police.uk/5._injury_road_traffic_collisions_and_casualties.pdf

From the same report Page 3,

"The most common causes of injury collisions in 2006/07 were ‘inattention’ (977 collisions), ‘excessive speed having regard to conditions’ (612 collisions) and ‘emerging from a minor road/driveway without care’ (583 collisions)."

Once again, thats Northern Ireland, home of bad roads and worse drivers; NOT the UK at large which is what E92 is talking about.

Seth Brundle

ninty9er wrote: »

seamus wrote: »

Breaking the speed limit doesn't cause many accidents.

OF course this is true on our N and M roads, but less true of our R and L roads. 2+1 roads are now being phased out to make way for a full programme of dual-carriageway which will inevitably make roads safer with the re-enforced central margins

Speeding (i.e. exceeding the speed limit) doesn't cause incidents. Its not as if a car will suddenly crash and blow up when it goes over the posted limit.
Not being able to stop in time is what you really mean! This can occur when travelling at less than the posted speed limit.

DonJose wrote: »

Read the following PSNI report about road deaths in NI, speeding is the main cause of road deaths in Northern Ireland.

Principal Factor.............................Number of Injury Collisions....Killed....Seriously Injured....Slightly Injured....Total Casualties
Inattention...................................977.................................8.........113......................1448.................1569
Excessive speed............................612.................................40........265......................810..................1115

http://www.psni.police.uk/5._injury_road_traffic_collisions_and_casualties.pdf

Being pedantic but that does not say speeding (as it is politically interpreted), it says "excessive speed" - quite different entirely.