Be Luas Aware!

Mrs OBumble

Interesting vid from the Luas people, been pushed today on the TFI rss feed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYDA4k3w3lE

What say ye - is it valid? Are motorists really that dumb?

abff

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Interesting vid from the Luas people, been pushed today on the TFI rss feed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYDA4k3w3lE

What say ye - is it valid? Are motorists really that dumb?

Based on that video, the answer has to be yes, they are that dumb.

vitani

Definitely genuine. I was on the Luas for one of those - the third one in, at the Queen Street junction.

smellmepower

Also been on a tram that was clipped at that Queen St junction.Was the last tram into town and was fairly empty with nobody hurt,still triggered a massive turnout from DFB and the Gardai.

Csalem

Yes motorists and people are that dumb. I work on O'Connell Street and every few minutes I hear the Luas horn, not the bell, as it tries to cross O'Connell Street as people walk out in front of it or cars park in the yellow box blocking it.

AlekSmart

One of the contributory factors to this behaviour may well be the perception amongst many motorists that the Luas is travelling at very slow speeds across these junctions.

This has fostered a culture to develop amongst Motorists that their car will easily out-run the tram...however virtually none of the motorists appreciate the MASS of the tram,which when encountered at even a crawling pace,will reduce ANY car to mangled scrap PDQ.

Perhaps it maight be in Luas's interest to actually speed-up their trams,or to give the impression of a bit of "Lúasacht" to encourage the others ?

Arthur Beesley

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Interesting vid from the Luas people, been pushed today on the TFI rss feed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYDA4k3w3lE

What say ye - is it valid? Are motorists really that dumb?

Is that a rhetorical question?

Mrs OBumble

Arthur Beesley wrote: »

Is that a rhetorical question?

Finally someone on my wavelength ....

Hilly Bill

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Interesting vid from the Luas people, been pushed today on the TFI rss feed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYDA4k3w3lE

What say ye - is it valid? Are motorists really that dumb?

Yep, there are some out there with zero cop on when they are behind the wheel.

AndrewJD

Luas are at least going about it in the right way. Spotify, radio and web adverts (don't have a TV, anything on that?), that video's been seen by 75,000 people - they're getting the message out. Then there's the announcement of traffic cameras going up at the junctions, coupled with the recent tragic event all over the news. Motorists will hopefully slowly get the message of how dangerous this is, and find the near-foreign ability to stop at a red light.

cgcsb

Irish people on general are poor drivers. Very little understanding of the white line, yellow box etc.

TheBandicoot

Worth remembering that the recent tragic death of a pedestrian was caused by a car vs Luas when the car was pushed out of control into the pedestrain- you are endangering unrelated, innocent bystanders by breaking the lights etc.

andy_g

cgcsb wrote: »

Irish people on general are poor drivers. Very little understanding of the white line, yellow box etc.

We're almost 200 times better than maltese and italian drivers to name a few.

LXFlyer

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Worth remembering that the recent tragic death of a pedestrian was caused by a car vs Luas when the car was pushed out of control into the pedestrain- you are endangering unrelated, innocent bystanders by breaking the lights etc.

Precisely and this is the message that they need to get over to drivers - think of what the potential consequences of your actions are and act responsibly.

Jawgap

Csalem wrote: »

Yes motorists and people are that dumb. I work on O'Connell Street and every few minutes I hear the Luas horn, not the bell, as it tries to cross O'Connell Street as people walk out in front of it or cars park in the yellow box blocking it.

Likewise, I work on Abbey Street and the wonder is that there aren't many more collisions and people hit by them.

Plus, while welcoming the traffic cameras, I'd suggest if the Guards were a bit quicker to nab a few of the drivers it'd go along way to helping. The area is well policed so they must see what the rest of us see.

mickydoomsux

cgcsb wrote: »

Irish people on general are poor drivers. Very little understanding of the white line, yellow box etc.

Agreed.

Roundabouts in particular are some kind of unsolvable enigma for the majority of Irish drivers.

It's like every time one of them approaches one it's the first time in their lives that they've ever seen this bizarre construct.

GerardKeating

cgcsb wrote: »

Irish people on general are poor drivers. Very little understanding of the white line, yellow box etc.

I had some "nice person" rather aggressively blasting his horn at me, and try to overtake because I would not enter a yellow box until was clear the other side.

Now don't get me wrong, I am sure I am guilty (at times) of getting stranded in them and other "bad" thing., but forcing someone to break the rules...

mikemac1

Interesting video and gets the message across

Irish Rail should do the same for cars jumping level crossings. I've seen a few British videos for that but can't recall Irish Rail doing any

Maybe Dublin Bus would like to do a video too.

markpb

mikemac1 wrote: »

Interesting video and gets the message across

Irish Rail should do the same for cars jumping level crossings. I've seen a few British videos for that but can't recall Irish Rail doing any

Maybe Dublin Bus would like to do a video too.

Or maybe, instead of all the videos, the Gardai could do a better job of enforcing the road traffic acts and the government could hurry up whatever delay is slowing down the rollout of red light cameras at rail crossings. The threat of being caught and punished for breaking the law is a lot better deterrent than a video which, though fun to watch, won't deter many people.

Muahahaha

The Luas video just shows a sample of the larger malaise in Irish driving that sees drivers regularly breaking red lights. It's something that crept in during the boom when commuting times shot up with the m50 works and the Luas lines creating jams for everyone. First it began with people just accelerating if they hit an amber light rather than braking and waiting. Now the red is the new amber and people are commonly breaking lights up to 3 seconds after they've changed colour.

It's so much so that I witnessed a bit of a funny accident last week on the N2. Two cars ahead of me were going 60kph approaching a major junction, when the first is near the lights they turn amber, the motorist directly behind him expects him to floor it on amber but he doesn't- he hits the brakes and motorist no.2 shunted into the back of him. I kinda found it funny in a way in that putting the foot down on an amber light is now so common that people expect others to do it and when they don't that in itself can cause an accident ! Only in Ireland....

mikemac1

Muahahaha wrote: »

Only in Ireland....

You should see the drivers in Rome :eek:

cgcsb

andy_g wrote: »

We're almost 200 times better than maltese and italian drivers to name a few.

Agreed I was almost killed several times in Italy on a weekend break by raving lunatics behind the wheels of cars.

Aard

It would have been better if those videos didn't stop right when the cars were hit -- we should have gotten to see the car ricocheting into another lane or onto the footpath.

I'm gonna guess that the people breaking the red lights in the videos were not taking a routine trip, otherwise they'd be aware of the tram and its dangers. They just seem light serial red light breakers. I find it interesting that they showed a few SUVs and vans. I wonder if they're trying to make a statement. Or maybe its just my dislike of SUVs coming out.

AlekSmart

Aard wrote: »

.

I find it interesting that they showed a few SUVs and vans. I wonder if they're trying to make a statement. Or maybe its just my dislike of SUVs coming out.

Or maybe not......

There does appear to be ,at least anecdotally,significant evidence of different behavioural patterns amongst certain Vehicle Type drivers,and SUV's are one of the latest types.

SUV's (Sports Utility Vehicles) are a relatively recent arrival on to the Irish scene from the USA.

Essentially,most of these vehicles derive from Agricultural,Military or Commercial vehicle designs, and as a result do not possess the same essential atributes as an "average" family saloon car.

What appears to have occurred,is the Motor Industry latched quickly on to the marketing opportunities offered through TV series "Placements" and the like.

Quite a number of SUV purchasers I have spoken to,cited a perception of increased security and crash resistance as being a contributory factor in the decision to purchase their vehicle,particularly when it's main use was to be transporting children to school etc.

However,in the average Urban context,vehicles such as these make very little sense at all,with scary levels of energy being frittered away to overcome the inertia inherent in a 1.5+ tonne vehicle.

Personally,I can see almost NO justification for the use of such vehicles in an already fraught Urban Motoring environment,and the Driving Styles which their use appear to encourage...Ban them...?...Hmmmm perhaps....Make their use prohibitively expensive or otherwise unpopular...Definitely !

pappe

Regarding Red Luas there are also plenty of junkies and wild gangs of teenagers taking it. I am used seeing them crossing the luas line last second. Sometimes they don't even notice that the luas is arriving. Sometimes they take it as a challenge. In other words they are very unpredictable by nature. I see those hazards nearly everyday and most of those people are jumping off the luas as soon as orange vests are seen.
As long as those people can all travel for free and orange vests don't fare them they will be continuing doing it.

Banjoxed

pappe wrote: »

Regarding Red Luas there are also plenty of junkies and wild gangs of teenagers taking it. I am used seeing them crossing the luas line last second. Sometimes they don't even notice that the luas is arriving. Sometimes they take it as a challenge. In other words they are very unpredictable by nature. I see those hazards nearly everyday and most of those people are jumping off the luas as soon as orange vests are seen.
As long as those people can all travel for free and orange vests don't fare them they will be continuing doing it.

Perhaps if some of them were killed by a tram they might take notice, but then again it will probably be just an excuse for compo.

Banjoxed

Muahahaha wrote: »

The Luas video just shows a sample of the larger malaise in Irish driving that sees drivers regularly breaking red lights. It's something that crept in during the boom when commuting times shot up with the m50 works and the Luas lines creating jams for everyone. First it began with people just accelerating if they hit an amber light rather than braking and waiting. Now the red is the new amber and people are commonly breaking lights up to 3 seconds after they've changed colour.

It's so much so that I witnessed a bit of a funny accident last week on the N2. Two cars ahead of me were going 60kph approaching a major junction, when the first is near the lights they turn amber, the motorist directly behind him expects him to floor it on amber but he doesn't- he hits the brakes and motorist no.2 shunted into the back of him. I kinda found it funny in a way in that putting the foot down on an amber light is now so common that people expect others to do it and when they don't that in itself can cause an accident ! Only in Ireland....

So Luas created a culture of RLJs .. Interesting.

Beano

Muahahaha wrote: »

The Luas video just shows a sample of the larger malaise in Irish driving that sees drivers regularly breaking red lights. It's something that crept in during the boom when commuting times shot up with the m50 works and the Luas lines creating jams for everyone. First it began with people just accelerating if they hit an amber light rather than braking and waiting. Now the red is the new amber and people are commonly breaking lights up to 3 seconds after they've changed colour.

Drivers were doing that a long time before the boom.

Owryan

Scary video, in the video tho it states that if a motorist hits a tram then they may be prosecuted.

Maybe these prosecutions should be more publicised. Might help wake up motorists to the fact their actions might have concequences

Sala

The poor woman killed in Smithfield was hit by a car that spun onto the path after hitting the luas. I don't know which driver was at fault. I work near there and I am am not surprised when I watch that video. So many drivers don't seem to even think of the luas as another vehicle and don't think twice about speeding acrross a junction when it's coming or blocking the tram lines, clearly marked by a yellow box, in rush hour.

Aard

At certain hours of the day, its almost a guarantee that cars will sit in the yellow box at Heuston. The hilarious thing is that such drivers will make no attempt to move out of the tram's way even when the neighbouring lane is free, preferring to sit there slack jawed. The height of arrogance, one person holding up one hundred people.