Road deaths at record low

AugustusMaximus

Road deaths for 2009 stood at 240, down by 39 from the previous.

Gay Byrne complimented drivers on "Choices not to speed, not to drive while tired and to wear a high visibility jacket when walking".

Of course, to my mind, this is a complete load of rubbish.

The following factors are the main reason for the fall.

1. The recession meaning people are driving less.
2. The opening of new stretches of motorway.
3. Gardai doing further random breath testing.

I'm guessing we are now surely in the top 5 of the safest countries for road users in the EU, even after the inherent riskiness of our roads due to our population spread and due to us having the greatest lenght of paved roads in the EU per capita. Put in other factors such as Irish people having to drive more than in other countries due to an almost complete abscence of public transport and these are absolutely amazing stats.

Massive Muscles

Better roads and better cars. Absolutely nothing to do with the RSA or any of their dubious campaigns.

extra-ordinary_

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

Road deaths for 2009 stood at 240, down by 39 from the previous.

Gay Byrne complimented drivers on "Choices not to speed, not to drive while tired and to wear a high visibility jacket when walking".

Of course, to my mind, this is a complete load of rubbish.

The following factors are the main reason for the fall.

1. The recession meaning people are driving less.
2. The opening of new stretches of motorway.
3. Gardai doing further random breath testing.

I'm guessing we are now surely in the top 5 of the safest countries for road users in the EU, even after the inherent riskiness of our roads due to our population spread and due to us having the greatest length of BADLY paved roads in the EU per capita.

FYP

AugustusMaximus

extra-ordinary_ wrote: »

FYP

Thanks for the spelling correction too


But yes, these are stunning statistics considering the state of some of our secondary and even some of our primary routes.

AugustusMaximus

Here's where Ireland now places in terms of road deaths per 100,000 population.


Germany 6.0
Israel 5.7
Denmark 5.4
UK 5.4
Ireland 5.38
Sweden 5.2
Japan 5.0
Norway 5.0


Out of Eu 27, we are now 4th in terms of road safety with only Sweden, Netherlands and Malta ahead of us.


Lets hope that the introduction of speed cameras doesn't see an increase in deaths as was seen in the UK.

The Express

The RSA almost believe that no one should ever die on the roads, ever!

Completely ridiculous scheduling of their road safety ads targetted at boy racers (during 'The Week In Politics' ad break on a Sunday night, for example), when any self-respecting boy racer is out doing donuts at a pitch black rural crossroads.

AugustusMaximus

The Express wrote: »

The RSA almost believe that no one should ever die on the roads, ever!

Completely ridiculous scheduling of their road safety ads targetted at boy racers (during 'The Week In Politics' ad break on a Sunday night, for example), when any self-respecting boy racer is out doing donuts at a pitch black rural crossroads.

The RSA do two kinds of ads only. The shock ones and the inoformitive ones.

The informitive ones are good. Off the top of my head I remember ones to do with merging onto motorways and motorway usage and indication at roundabouts. Sadly, these are hardly ever shown and very few were made.


On the other hand we see the shock ads all the time. They are usually always the same. Young, ugly guy driving a supped up car, kills young good looking girl in her prime due to excessive speed. And of course, let us not forget the unforgivable "He drives, she dies" campaign earlier this year.


The worst of all this though is that the RSA is proceeding with pressurising the government on the issue of the introduction of speed cameras. IMO, the general improvement of our secondary road network, which in itself has been potholed to high heaven after all the rain and recent freeze would be a much better investment which would yield better reductions in road deaths.

The Express

There's a reasonable amount of single vehicle accidents IMO that are actually suicides.

But will we ever hear this from the RSA, will we fcuk!

AugustusMaximus

The Express wrote: »

There's a reasonable amount of single vehicle accidents IMO that are actually suicides.

But will we ever hear this from the RSA, will we fcuk!

Of course.

And what demographic in Irish society are likely to commit suicide ? Young males.

Heroditas

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

Road deaths for 2009 stood at 240, down by 39 from the previous.

Yet the morons in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown are reducing speed limits from 80kmph to 50kmph, 50kmph to 30kmph etc to "increase safety" :rolleyes:

2qk4u

There is probably some connection to the fact that so many foreign workers have left the country and a lot of Irish have emigrated.

AugustusMaximus

Staggering.

RTE gave us 240 news reports about road deaths during the year yet couldn't give us one to tell us how much safer our roads were this year.

BrianD3

Great news. So road deaths last year were pretty much HALF what they were in 1990. In 1997 and 2001, things were only slightly better than in 1990. On more than one occasion in the 1970s, there were 600+ killed in a year

Of course better roads have a major influence on it. I am thinking back to all the fatal crashes that occured on roads such as the N1, N4, N6 etc. before the motorways and dual carriageways opened

Recession probably has an effect but there were still many more people working here in 2009 than there were in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Safer cars and more seatbelt wearing. The latter is not necessarily all due to enforcement as most newish cars have seatbelt buzzers that annoy drivers into belting up. EuroNCAP has been a big factor in the introduction of these buzzers as it has in the introduction of much safer and stronger cars.

ShadowHearth

The Express wrote: »

The RSA almost believe that no one should ever die on the roads, ever!

Completely ridiculous scheduling of their road safety ads targetted at boy racers (during 'The Week In Politics' ad break on a Sunday night, for example), when any self-respecting boy racer is out doing donuts at a pitch black rural crossroads.

MMmmmmmm,...... DONUTS!

Self respecting donut lover does that on any night, or on shedulate meet. And we, i ment those bastords, like to do donuts in deep carparks, where no one can see it and interupt it .

Interesting, how many donut lovers died out of that number? 0? I would really love to see donut realated death :rolleyes:

On topic: les death is allways better, thought i dont think much of it was RSA... biggest part of it was GARDAs Job, taking of drunk drivers of the road...

Seth Brundle

Massive Muscles wrote: »

Better roads and better cars. Absolutely nothing to do with the RSA or any of their dubious campaigns.

The stats of 39 less deaths compared to the previous year cannot be based on safer roads and even less likely on safer cars

The Express wrote: »

The RSA almost believe that no one should ever die on the roads, ever!

Isn't part of their remit to ensure that road fatalities (and incidents) are reduced in numbers

The Express wrote: »

There's a reasonable amount of single vehicle accidents IMO that are actually suicides.

But will we ever hear this from the RSA, will we fcuk!

We don't actually know how many of our road fatalities are suicides given that the victims are actually dead!

Heroditas wrote: »

Yet the morons in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown are reducing speed limits from 80kmph to 50kmph, 50kmph to 30kmph etc to "increase safety" :rolleyes:

On which roads? Would there be many pedestrians or cyclists along these roads?
Anyhow, are you suggesting that because fatality numbers are down that we should start allowing more risk?

ShadowHearth wrote: »

On topic: les death is allways better, thought i dont think much of it was RSA... biggest part of it was GARDAs Job, taking of drunk drivers of the road...

...and who got the minister to clarify the RBT legislation and get the gardai to enforce this law?

ContyHooks

Only in Ireland could someone find problems with decreasing road fatalities.

pajo1981

Skangers all lost their jobs and had to sell their sooped up knacker-wagons?

Lets call a spade a spade these c.u.n.t.s were killing people.

Jumpy

No one thinking that less learners driving unaccompanied could have helped no?

AugustusMaximus

ContyHooks wrote: »

Only in Ireland could someone find problems with decreasing road fatalities.

Where did I say I had a problem with decreasing road fatalities ?

AugustusMaximus

Jumpy wrote: »

No one thinking that less learners driving unaccompanied could have helped no?

I don't think the instruction to the Gardai to get stricter on L drivers has made any difference at all. I know a few people on provisionals who are driving away regardless of the revised policing.

The Express

ShadowHearth wrote: »

MMmmmmmm,...... DONUTS!

Self respecting donut lover does that on any night, or on shedulate meet. And we, i ment those bastords, like to do donuts in deep carparks, where no one can see it and interupt it .

Interesting, how many donut lovers died out of that number? 0? I would really love to see donut realated death :rolleyes:

On topic: les death is allways better, thought i dont think much of it was RSA... biggest part of it was GARDAs Job, taking of drunk drivers of the road...

Too much donuts anyone?

Tragedy

kbannon wrote: »

The stats of 39 less deaths compared to the previous year cannot be based on safer roads and even less likely on safer cars

Why can it automagically be based on the actions of RSA though?

pajo1981

Jumpy wrote: »

No one thinking that less learners driving unaccompanied could have helped no?

I don't think so - too much weight I attached to the driving licence - the maj of deaths on the road are caused by scum driving around like lunatics IMO.

ShadowHearth

The Express wrote: »

Too much donuts anyone?

sorry mine english typing skills are not the best, i miss letters or have bad sentence structure.

and yes. GIVE DONUNTS!

AugustusMaximus

I must say, I don't have a problem with anyone doing donuts.

As long as they are not done on a public road and are not waking people up at 3 in the morning.

Anyways, once their gearbox/differential goes they'll learn that donuts aren't always a good idea.

Massive Muscles

kbannon wrote: »

The stats of 39 less deaths compared to the previous year cannot be based on safer roads and even less likely on safer cars

Death rates have not only halved since the 70s but in terms of total miles travelled have at least quartered. What do you think are the reasons for this?
Every year thousands of cars without ABS are being removed from the roads being replaced with newer cars that have ABS and traction control. These stop accidents from ever happening and if they do the driver protection means a person is a lot more likely to survive a crash.

All studies point to the effectiveness of these systems.

ShadowHearth

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

I must say, I don't have a problem with anyone doing donuts.

As long as they are not done on a public road and are not waking people up at 3 in the morning.

Anyways, once their gearbox/differential goes they'll learn that donuts aren't always a good idea.

always something will brake down, sooner or later... whats the point of living the life in safe mode and newer taste fun part of it...

Ill buy new gearbox and diff if needed, atleast i will newer wonder in old age was it fun or not... you dont need to do messing in your daily car aswell... thats what weakend cars are for...

Newer did dangerous driving on open roads myself, if i had needed in some... "donuts", i am going to place, which is really far away from houses and main roads.

Heroditas

kbannon wrote: »

On which roads? Would there be many pedestrians or cyclists along these roads?
Anyhow, are you suggesting that because fatality numbers are down that we should start allowing more risk?
.

ALL roads in the borough, i.e. part of the N11 will have a 50kmph speed limit such as the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway.

Seth Brundle

Massive Muscles wrote: »

Death rates have not only halved since the 70s but in terms of total miles travelled have at least quartered. What do you think are the reasons for this?
Every year thousands of cars without ABS are being removed from the roads being replaced with newer cars that have ABS and traction control. These stop accidents from ever happening and if they do the driver protection means a person is a lot more likely to survive a crash.

All studies point to the effectiveness of these systems.

I was referring to the difference between 2008 & 2007! This was the point being made in the OP. The fact that you went off on a tangent was not made aware to the rest of us!

Heroditas wrote: »

ALL roads in the borough, i.e. part of the N11 will have a 50kmph speed limit such as the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway.

Crikey!

v300

Heroditas wrote: »

ALL roads in the borough, i.e. part of the N11 will have a 50kmph speed limit such as the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway.

If this continues we will soon be having to obey the old repealed law, the Locomotive Act that states you must have a man waving a red flag, walking in front of a moving vehicle at all times.
The Locomotive Act reduced the speed limit to 4 mph in the country and 2 mph in towns....

Bee

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

Road deaths for 2009 stood at 240, down by 39 from the previous.

Gay Byrne complimented drivers on "Choices not to speed, not to drive while tired and to wear a high visibility jacket when walking".

Of course, to my mind, this is a complete load of rubbish.

The following factors are the main reason for the fall.

1. The recession meaning people are driving less.
2. The opening of new stretches of motorway.
3. Gardai doing further random breath testing.

I'm guessing we are now surely in the top 5 of the safest countries for road users in the EU, even after the inherent riskiness of our roads due to our population spread and due to us having the greatest lenght of paved roads in the EU per capita. Put in other factors such as Irish people having to drive more than in other countries due to an almost complete abscence of public transport and these are absolutely amazing stats.

Actually the 99% reason is number 2 on your list.

Bad roads and I even hate to use the term "Accident Blackspots" (with correct road engineering there should be no such thing as "Accident blackspots") have been eliminated in many areas resulting in a much lower "Accident" rates (not really genuine accidents, incidents created by lousy roads)

It is a verifiable fact that the lower incidents are are in the main down to better roads and bypasses.

Next on the list are mechanically safer cars, even though the FF/Green slime insist on a high rate of VAT and VRT on safety elements in cars, i.e. child safety seats, seatbelts, electronic stability control, ABS, air bags etc rather than promote road safety the FF/Green slime insist on the same high rate of tax on these safety features which shows you where their priorities lie.

What would improve road safety a bit would be if we had a professional Traffic Corps rather than the what is called a "Traffic Corps".

How many Garda cars have you seen parked outside of a Pub this Christmas?

Sez it all!

Happy New Year and safe motoring folks!