2008 Road Death Statistics

AugustusMaximus

Anyone have these statistics for this year so far and where we stand this year compared to the same date in previous years ?

Esel

No figures, but the figures are going down in real terms. Many more cars on the road, number of deaths not increasing pro-rata.

AugustusMaximus

Have to factor in the extra day due to a leap year in 2008 too.

Sandwich

Yesterdays Tribune :

"ROAD deaths have dropped by over 40% in the last two months with Ireland now the second most improved country in Europe in terms of road safety.
Thirty-eight people were killed in road accidents in Ireland in March and April, a massive drop from 2007, when 64 people were killed during the same time period.It is especially good news for road safety campaigners in this country, considering the number of bank holidays - which generally yield multiple road fatalities - during that time period.However, the Road Safety Authority (RSA) is warning that while they are happy with the progress being made, two months is not "a statistical trend".
Brian Farrell, communications manager for the RSA, is happy with the progress being made and said, "If we keep up this behaviour, we will be among the safest roads in Europe."For the first time, Ireland has entered the EU top 10 best performing countries. We are now ranked at number nine in the table out of 25 countries, compared to our 2005 ranking of 16th.
Road deaths decreased by 15% between 2005 and 2007.
This improvement is defying European trends where there has been a big increase in the number of road fatalities over the last few years.
The fact that Ireland is bucking the trend of poor European road safety is being put down to the introduction of the penalty points system and random breath testing, along with increased awareness and a strong media campaign spearheaded by the RSA.
The low death toll over March and April - 19 fatalities per month - is in line with the new Road Safety Strategy target of no more than 20 deaths per month."


It seems that despite the criticism, the govt/RSA strategy is working. More cameras, speed checks, random breath checks, penalty points, and the roads will become a safer place.

AugustusMaximus

I get the feeling that the reduction in road deaths is primarily down to the introduction of random breath testing.

Can't be over emphasised how many people die due to drink driving.

Alun

You can't deduce anything from these pointless "compared to the same x months last year" comparisons. If you were to compare, say, January and February instead of March and April, the picture looks a little less rosy (59 in 2008 vs. 47 in 2007). You can pick and choose small groups of months like this from various years out of the table on the Garda website and prove pretty much anything you like if you're of a mind to.

Also, just concentrating on the number of deaths, however tragic they may be, blurs the picture. It depends on the number of people in each car, for example, something that is not influenced in any way shape or form by the various initiatives. What about serious injuries as well, do they not count?

I'd much rather see statistics that give the number of incidents split into categories that result in death, serious injury, non-serious injury, no injuries at all. That would give us a much clearer picture of the state of affairs IMO.

PCros

Here you go OP:

Deaths are down this month and last month compared to last year.

http://www.garda.ie/statistics98/nroadstats.html

E92

Sandwich wrote: »

More cameras, speed checks

And you'll duly note that none of these are presently in place and still our road deaths are falling. Why do you own a car that has a top speed of 140 mph and does 0-60 in 8.2 seconds which is actually rather fast if you keep harping on about the "dangers" of speeding? Clear evidence that despite all the hype that speed cameras make no difference to road safety. Of course going slower makes a difference in certain situations. But getting mixed up with that and breaking the speed limit are VERY different things, something the pro speed camera argument simply either cannot or as I suspect refuse to understand. And don't spin the yarn about random breath testing(which I am fully in favour of btw) because that has been in place for well over a year too if I'm not mistaken.

And the penalty points thing that the Turbine(yes I know that the correct name is Tribune:p) is saying is bullsh*t and they know it. When was the last time anyone saw a Guard enforcing any of the rules of the road and giving people well deserved penalty points apart from the money spinner that is speeding(they enforce drink driving too and rightly so but that's it)?

Sandwich

Dominated by speeding points yes. But 140000 points issued for other offences is not nothing. And the other offences have not been inforce for as long.

http://www.penaltypoints.ie/points_issued.php

D_murph

E92 wrote: »

Why do you own a car that has a top speed of 140 mph and does 0-60 in 8.2 seconds which is actually rather fast if you keep harping on about the "dangers" of speeding?

i sincerely doubt he has a car like that or that he actually follows the speed limits so religiously as he indicates in one :rolleyes:. its just so hard to ignore the high % of his posts that include speed limit propaganda though. oh well, whatever floats his boat

E92

So we've not established that last year no less than 450,000 penalty points were because of speeding. And the number of penalty point offences for breaking the speed limit at roadworks(which are often laughably low) amounted to 2,160.

So 452,770 out of 592,722 penalty point offences were for.......speeding.

In other words, 76.4% of all penalty point offences are for speeding.

Says a lot about the Guards' attitude to enforcing the rule of the road, doesn't it?

I.S.T.

Sandwich wrote: »

It seems that despite the criticism, the govt/RSA strategy is working. More cameras, speed checks, random breath checks, penalty points, and the roads will become a safer place.

More cameras & speed checks?????? That is a new one to me. Do you have figures?

E92

D_murph wrote: »

i sincerely doubt he has a car like that or that he actually follows the speed limits so religiously as he indicates in one :rolleyes:.

He said in a previous post that he has a Volvo S60 2.0T, which is as fast as I said it was last night;)!

itarumaa

I am actually suprized of the figures,

I am from Finland and if I compare the speeds and roads you have here, it is really suprize that there are not more deaths, narrow roads and really high speeds, but I think things that help are traffic culture, that is much more forgiving for driver errors (people give space, polite drivers etc) and much better and newer cars.

It is a big difference if you crash some modern car like Yaris and not in some car made in 80s,

But the speeds specially in country roads what people drive here are quite amazing:) but somehow you get used those after some driving experience.

Phaetonman

Irelands slightly higher than EU average road deaths can be attributed to
1. Massive network of narrow hedged country roads. This is just a feature of our settlement heritage
2. Large amount of busy single lane carriageway

Most road deaths I here about in Ireland are single car late night jobs on the backroads and then dodgy overtaking on the main roads.

100gSoma

only 275 road deaths this year. It's promising progress, but lots more to do. down 20% on last year. and the first time since 1961 that we have had less than 300 deaths in any one year.

towel401

100gSoma wrote: »

only 275 road deaths this year. It's promising progress, but lots more to do. down 20% on last year. and the first time since 1961 that we have had less than 300 deaths in any one year.

thats not bad. it used to be over 400 a while back in the bad old days.they just need to sort out the roads now and forget about the speeding cameras & mandatory GPS tracking.

pred racer

Sandwich wrote: »

It seems that despite the criticism, the govt/RSA strategy is working. More cameras, speed checks, random breath checks, penalty points, and the roads will become a safer place.

Yet the road deaths have gone down without any of these being in place.
I do 30k+ miles a year, and I have seen none of these.

McSpud

It is good to see the numbers coming down but will the RSA be able to resist congratulating themselves? Standard practice seems to be for the powers that be to take the credit when numbers go down but blame everyone else when the numbers rise.

Improved roads (e.g. main inter city route Dublin-Cork is almost all motorway now) & cars as well as general driver behaviour has the biggest impact on numbers.

AugustusMaximus

McSpud wrote: »

It is good to see the numbers coming down but will the RSA be able to resist congratulating themselves? Standard practice seems to be for the powers that be to take the credit when numbers go down but blame everyone else when the numbers rise.

Bang on. I can see it now. Gay Byrne grinning like a cheshire cat, taking all the praise.

The decrease in deaths IMO, has very little to do with speed checks at all.


With about 3 hours left in December, the December death toll stands at 11. This is far lower than any other month for the past 7 years and a completely statistical quirk for the month of December which usually has high death rates due to icey roads and drunken drivers.

Anyone give any insight into such a low December figure. Is it just luck ?

mumhaabu

Road deaths down this is good news for all people but before heaping praise on the RSA and our incompetent Government we must look at the reasons.

• Almost half a million people have got penalty points and this leads to a change of attitude.
• Ireland is firmly in recession so half the mental driving by trucks, lorries, and building contractors has now ceased, where I live from 6.30am to 10am to and from 4.30pm to 7.00pm saw the road a virtual death trap, it has quietened alot since this time last year. There is almost 300,000 on the dole and alot of them are not driving everyday as they can't afford to and have nowhere to go to begin with.
• Oil prices reached $147/barrel and almost €1.50/litre for Petrol and Diesel this led to a large reduction in the amount of driving done overall coupled with the Recession.
• A sizeable proportion of Eastern Europeans have now left Ireland and taken their Russian Roulette driving home with them, they made up a large portion of deaths and caused a lot of accidents, If the figures were available you'd see that foreigners made up less casualties than the previous years.
• Alot of people are driving in stronger better built cars and as the years go by I'd say well over 90% of cars are now post 2000 or 2001 reg which gave greater safety and protection in an accident. With the new VRT rules it is now possible to buy faster cars eg. 2.2Tdi cheaper leading to safer faster overtaking manouveres compared to the usual 1.6 "dead" cars of previous.
• Our roads are getting better slowly, we have seen many miles of new Motorway opened this year and improvements in other areas.

All in this means that with less people on the roads to begin with and the roads getting better the chances of an accident decreases and with better built stronger cars also I'd say survivability rates would also be up, however horrendous injuries would be too as people who might normally be killed would now survive only to be crippled or vegetative state for life.
The attitude change brought about by RSA adverts and random breath testing have also helped, however in my opinion the biggest effect on roads deaths has been the recession and less mental mad fast lifestyle.

AugustusMaximus

mumhaabu wrote: »

Road deaths down this is good news for all people but before heaping praise on the RSA and our incompetent Government we must look at the reasons.

• Almost half a million people have got penalty points and this leads to a change of attitude.
• Ireland is firmly in recession so half the mental driving by trucks, lorries, and building contractors has now ceased, where I live from 6.30am to 10am to and from 4.30pm to 7.00pm saw the road a virtual death trap, it has quietened alot since this time last year. There is almost 300,000 on the dole and alot of them are not driving everyday as they can't afford to and have nowhere to go to begin with.
• Oil prices reached $147/barrel and almost €1.50/litre for Petrol and Diesel this led to a large reduction in the amount of driving done overall coupled with the Recession.
• A sizeable proportion of Eastern Europeans have now left Ireland and taken their Russian Roulette driving home with them, they made up a large portion of deaths and caused a lot of accidents, If the figures were available you'd see that foreigners made up less casualties than the previous years.
• Alot of people are driving in stronger better built cars and as the years go by I'd say well over 90% of cars are now post 2000 or 2001 reg which gave greater safety and protection in an accident. With the new VRT rules it is now possible to buy faster cars eg. 2.2Tdi cheaper leading to safer faster overtaking manouveres compared to the usual 1.6 "dead" cars of previous.
• Our roads are getting better slowly, we have seen many miles of new Motorway opened this year and improvements in other areas.

All in this means that with less people on the roads to begin with and the roads getting better the chances of an accident decreases and with better built stronger cars also I'd say survivability rates would also be up, however horrendous injuries would be too as people who might normally be killed would now survive only to be crippled or vegetative state for life.
The attitude change brought about by RSA adverts and random breath testing have also helped, however in my opinion the biggest effect on roads deaths has been the recession and less mental mad fast lifestyle.

I think the banning of learner drivers from our roads without a qualified driver may have had a benefit too.

sdanseo

PCros wrote: »

Here you go OP:

Deaths are down this month and last month compared to last year.

http://www.garda.ie/statistics98/nroadstats.html

The Garda website really is utter ****e. :rolleyes:

mumhaabu

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

I think the banning of learner drivers from our roads without a qualified driver may have had a benefit too.

The thing is most of them are still on the roads, however all that has disappeared is the "L Plates", the amount of L plates around now compared to a while back is tiny, they are still there just we can't spot them any more!

bazz26

275 lives lost on our roads last year is still deplorable. Better than 400 yes but still shocking for such a small country.

L1011

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

With about 3 hours left in December, the December death toll stands at 11. This is far lower than any other month for the past 7 years and a completely statistical quirk for the month of December which usually has high death rates due to icey roads and drunken drivers.

Anyone give any insight into such a low December figure. Is it just luck ?

Poverty. Theres been nearly nobody out and about drinking compared to previous years = less drunk drivers, less drunken pedestrians to get hit by cars...

Traumadoc

I agree, there has been a hugh fall off in RTAs, especially in the last year, I agree with a lot of posters that the fall off has been multifactorial.

Education and the removal of the learner drivers.
Engineering and the improvements in our national routes.
Enforcement of speeding laws and seatbelt rules.

I hope that in future more effort will be put into protecting pedestrians/cyclists.

mike65

towel401 wrote: »

thats not bad. it used to be over 400 a while back in the bad old days.they just need to sort out the roads now and forget about the speeding cameras & mandatory GPS tracking.

It was over 600 a year in the 70s and consider the number of drivers back then.

The biggest fall in the last year was pedestrians and passengers who between then acccounted for about 60 fewer deaths.

quarryman

Anyone know the figures for road crashes? It would be interesting to see if there has been an increase in survivability due to safer cars on the road.

Climate Expert

bazz26 wrote: »

275 lives lost on our roads last year is still deplorable. Better than 400 yes but still shocking for such a small country.

Its actually pretty normal.

McSpud

Bad start to 2009. 3 killed in Tipp

Three boys aged 14,16 and 17 were fatally injured. Two were pronounced dead at the scene and another boy was later pronounced dead at Nenagh General Hospital.

The other two occupants, a 16 year old girl and a 15 year old boy, were taken to the Mid Western General Hospital in Limerick where their condition was described as serious.

Voodoomelon

Louth has the 10 highest amount of penalty points, for the smallest county in the country! That's some going...

sdanseo

Voodoomelon wrote: »

Louth has the 10 highest amount of penalty points, for the smallest county in the country! That's some going...

Yeah, but the M1 goes straight through it

SouperComputer

bazz26 wrote: »

275 lives lost on our roads last year is still deplorable. Better than 400 yes but still shocking for such a small country.

I need to find some updated figures, but I would wager that this is still better than our suicide death rate. I'd to see that get some decent consideration in leiu of this road safety "posturing"

L1011

McSpud wrote: »

Bad start to 2009. 3 killed in Tipp

That was on NYE so should be in 2008s figures?

According to the disgraceful rag, sorry, Herald the driver (who's survived so far but still critical) was 16! However, its the Herald so that could be entirely untrue.

samsemtex

MYOB wrote: »

That was on NYE so should be in 2008s figures?

According to the disgraceful rag, sorry, Herald the driver (who's survived so far but still critical) was 16! However, its the Herald so that could be entirely untrue.

No it was in the early hours of 2009 so it will count as 2009.

I reckon a huge amount of it is to do with the amount of new roads opened. I live between on the old main Cork Dublin road between Mitchelstown and Cahir and this road has recently been bypassed. There were without fail 1-5 people killed on this 15km stretch of road every year since ive been living on it until this year where there hasnt even been an accident of any type yet. This is only a tiny portion of the new roads in the country that have opened this year and if that trend is continued elsewhere in the country that alone surely accounts for about 30lives not lost does it not?

Penalty points are normally dished out on the outskirts of small towns/safe sections of dual carriageway from what i can see and i really do wonder how many people have been killed coming out of Abbeyleix over the years. The way the gaurds patrol it you would swear there were actually houses around the area :rolleyes:

L1011

I nearly cracked my head open off the roof of my car coming out of Abbeyleix, the condition of the surface is so poor!

Rovi

samsemtex wrote: »

MYOB wrote: »

That was on NYE so should be in 2008s figures?

According to the disgraceful rag, sorry, Herald the driver (who's survived so far but still critical) was 16! However, its the Herald so that could be entirely untrue.

No it was in the early hours of 2009 so it will count as 2009.

7.30pm on New Year's Eve, according to today's Indo-
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/boy-16-behind-wheel--as-three-friends-killed-1589302.html

...and the Times-
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0102/breaking14.htm

Sandwich

pred racer wrote: »

"Originally Posted by Sandwich
It seems that despite the criticism, the govt/RSA strategy is working. More cameras, speed checks, random breath checks, penalty points, and the roads will become a safer place."

Yet the road deaths have gone down without any of these being in place.
I do 30k+ miles a year, and I have seen none of these.

No sure thats true Pred racer. Are random breath checks, people with penalty points, speed check not all up in 2008 on 2007 ?

Good points from Mumhaabu, and reducing the provo drivers has probably helped also. If the Eastern European thing is a factor we will probably see a big reduction in 2009.

Interesting one for the psychologists among you. The survey on attitiudes to the planned fixed camera scheme : 63% of men think its a money rather than safety oriented, 37% of women think its money rather than safety oriented. Does that suggest that men are smarter than women and see the deceit by the government, or that they are more susceptible to biased reasoning to justify their faster driving, higher risk taking than women?

Bottom line is 2008 was good news. Cause and effect are hard to determine. But when the trend is in the desired direction, more of the same medicine can not really be argued against.

S.I.R

bazz26 wrote: »

275 lives lost on our roads last year is still deplorable. Better than 400 yes but still shocking for such a small country.

people die, i bet most of them deserved it.

peasant

S.I.R wrote: »

people die, i bet most of them deserved it.

That is a very insensitive remark.

Have a week to reflect on it

ninty9er

I still think seat belt wearing by rear seat passengers could seriously cut the number.

I know the remark by SIR was insensitive, but I think he was hinting in the right direction. People die on the roads by being idiots behind the wheel, regardless of speed, drink, seatbelts etc...which are all side issues, ergo some people draw it on themselves....it's the passengers that suffer, but I'd still find it hard to pity someone who got into a car with a drunk driver that was going to be taking a rural N-route home.

Driving at 200km/h in a C63 on the M1 at any time of day is safer than driving at 60km/h in a Cinquecento outside a school gate at 3pm in December.

However much pain can be caused by an accident, if dead people who died because they weren't wearing seatbelts or because they got in a car with a drunk/being drunk at the wheel are called idiots on national TV, the "never speak ill of the dead" taboo would be broken and that has weight to it.

peasant

ninty9er wrote: »

I still think seat belt wearing by rear seat passengers could seriously cut the number.

I know the remark by SIR was insensitive, but I think he was hinting in the right direction. People die on the roads by being idiots behind the wheel, regardless of speed, drink, seatbelts etc...which are all side issues, ergo some people draw it on themselves....it's the passengers that suffer, but I'd still find it hard to pity someone who got into a car with a drunk driver that was going to be taking a rural N-route home.

Driving at 200km/h in a C63 on the M1 at any time of day is safer than driving at 60km/h in a Cinquecento outside a school gate at 3pm in December.

However much pain can be caused by an accident, if dead people who died because they weren't wearing seatbelts or because they got in a car with a drunk/being drunk at the wheel are called idiots on national TV, the "never speak ill of the dead" taboo would be broken and that has weight to it.

Ever think of the people that die on our roads through no fault of their own?

I think you should.

timmywex

Most of these stats are bullshiz frankly, the numbers dying are larger, the stats are glossed up nicely though to cushion it somewhat


Perfect example, if someone is in a car crash and suffers major injuries that would more than likely be fatal, but have a heart attack, either before or after the incident, they are deamed to have died from a heart attack, and not from the rtc, when realisticly, it was caused by the rtc

Climate Expert

timmywex wrote: »

Most of these stats are bullshiz frankly, the numbers dying are larger, the stats are glossed up nicely though to cushion it somewhat


Perfect example, if someone is in a car crash and suffers major injuries that would more than likely be fatal, but have a heart attack, either before or after the incident, they are deamed to have died from a heart attack, and not from the rtc, when realisticly, it was caused by the rtc

Ha, that is ridiculous. Those road death figures are accurate, I think its you who just doesn't like the truth. You'd prefer if more people died on the roads as that probably fits your views on road safety.

ninty9er

peasant wrote: »

Ever think of the people that die on our roads through no fault of their own?

I think you should.

I do and I did if you read:

ninty9er wrote: »

ergo some people draw it on themselves....it's the passengers that suffer, but I'd still find it hard to pity someone who got into a car with a drunk driver that was going to be taking a rural N-route home.

Do you ever think of the lives that could be saved if we stopped molly-coddling people?

timmywex

Climate Expert wrote: »

Ha, that is ridiculous. Those road death figures are accurate, I think its you who just doesn't like the truth. You'd prefer if more people died on the roads as that probably fits your views on road safety.

They arent accurate, i have been on scene of a fatal rtc, where a man in his 80's passed away, but because the autopsy judged that it was a heart attack that he died from, so it doesnt appear under the figures for the deaths.

I have no problem with the truth, and i think its terrible how many people die on our roads

ninty9er

timmywex wrote: »

They arent accurate, i have been on scene of a fatal rtc, where a man in his 80's passed away, but because the autopsy judged that it was a heart attack that he died from, so it doesnt appear under the figures for the deaths.

I have no problem with the truth, and i think its terrible how many people die on our roads

So?? I know of a man who had a heart attack and crashed his car as a result...he died of a heart attack not a MVA.

peasant

ninty9er wrote: »

I do and I did if you read:


Do you ever think of the lives that could be saved if we stopped molly-coddling people?

It's not just passenger that suffer.

That supposeldy "safe" car barelling down a motorway at 200 km/h from your previous post could easily wipe out an entire family in a car that pulled into the overtaking lane not reckoning with another driver "safely" doing 80 km/h above the speed limit.

Now think again (this IS a warning!)

ninty9er

peasant wrote: »

That supposeldy "safe" car barelling down a motorway at 200 km/h from your previous post could easily wipe out an entire family in a car that pulled into the overtaking lane not reckoning with another driver "safely" doing 80 km/h above the speed limit.

People in the "other car" are innocent, I'll take that on board.

But in the situation above, it is the person pulling into the overtaking lane that is the ROOT cause of the accident, you WOULD see that car coming.

timmywex

ninty9er wrote: »

So?? I know of a man who had a heart attack and crashed his car as a result...he died of a heart attack not a MVA.

Yes, but its when he has the heart attack after the incident, from the shock or from the heart trying to pump faster, that the figures are wrong, the person dies of an rtc in that regard, because its the rtc that overall caused the heart attack



Just on another point, mva isnt used anymore because aparently, there are no such things as accidents, because theyre caused!

And to disagree with you on something else, driving at 200kmph is never safe with other vehicles around and no warning devices, if the person is trained and is a good enough driver that speed can be grand, and safe with no-one else around. Just because you have right of way doesnt mean you get right of way all the time, likewise, just because your in the overtaking lane doesnt mean people might pull out in front of you