North Kildare motorists

RoastBeefDinner

I have recently moved to the area and in 25 years of driving I have never come across which must be the highest concentration of cars with broken,badly adjusted and in my view illegal headlight bulbs.

Every morning and evening for the past 2 months I do a 8km commute by car to the train station and every time I pass at least 5 cars with broken or badly adjusted headlights.

And also, would ye ever turn off your fog lights!
There hasn't been fog since the beginning of December. And if you think it looks cool it doesn't.

Then people wonder why the carnage on the roads.
FFS wake up.

Moonbeam

Did you notice a lot of cars seem to lack indicators too?

L1011

Only 5 in 8km suggests you've got some of the most compliant drivers in the county living near you... I'd say there's 5 people on my road with broken headlights!

Orion

Moonbeam wrote: »

Did you notice a lot of cars seem to lack indicators too?

RoastBeefDinner

I dunno.
Ok so there's been some very frosty nights and probably knocks out some bulbs but the headlight adjustments and dodgy trooper bulbs?

In part I blame the centralisation of the NCT centre's. My reasoning for this is, if we had a system like many other countries do whereby local mechanics perform NCT's surely this would help those in rural communities to be able to approach a local mechanic quicker to resolve these problems? It may even encourage local employment also.

I call for yearly NCT's,compulsory for a garage to fresh NCT every used car sold and driver retest every 10 years.
We cant put a price on road safety can we?

L1011

RoastBeefDinner wrote: »

In part I blame the centralisation of the NCT centre's. My reasoning for this is, if we had a system like many other countries do whereby local mechanics perform NCT's surely this would help those in rural communities to be able to approach a local mechanic quicker to resolve these problems? It may even encourage local employment also.

There is absolutely no link between where you get your NCT done and being able to go to a mechanic - there are mechanics everywhere anyway and you only get an NCT every 2 years on a <10 year vehicle. I don't even see how you can begin to string a link there.

Non-centralised car test systems allow people to get fraudulent certificates incredibly easily which is why they are dying out everywhere. UK is eventually going to move to centralised, they already have in the North for this reason.

Also, North Kildare isn't "rural". Even the furthest areas from the big towns are still heavily populated and have services.

RoastBeefDinner

L1011 wrote: »

There is absolutely no link between where you get your NCT done and being able to go to a mechanic - there are mechanics everywhere anyway and you only get an NCT every 2 years on a <10 year vehicle. I don't even see how you can begin to string a link there.

Yeah but if your mechanic does your NCT you visit him yearly no? If the NCT wasn't centralised then at least it enables people to build a rapport with their local mechanic and if there is a problem you can call on him/her when your stuck.
Try going into a dealership in the capital with an issue and they will say come back next week and BTW its €100 just to diagnose the issue before parts and labour. And that's if they can be bothered.

L1011 wrote: »

Also, North Kildare isn't "rural". Even the furthest areas from the big towns are still heavily populated and have services.

Not sure where your going with that??

L1011

RoastBeefDinner wrote: »

Yeah but if your mechanic does your NCT you visit him yearly no?

You can visit your mechanic whenever you want. If somethings wrong, you're going to fail and need to get it fixed anyway - its utterly irrelevant who tells you this.

RoastBeefDinner wrote: »

If the NCT wasn't centralised then at least it enables people to build a rapport with their local mechanic and if there is a problem you can call on him/her when your stuck.

None of this dependent on them doing your NCT!

RoastBeefDinner wrote: »

Try going into a dealership in the capital with an issue and they will say come back next week and BTW its €100 just to diagnose the issue before parts and labour. And that's if they can be bothered.

And when the person who's testing your car also repairs it they can very easily say that you need X, Y and Z done at a cost before they issue the cert. Hence why that is being withdrawn worldwide.

RoastBeefDinner wrote: »

Not sure where your going with that??

You made some claim about "rural communities" in your treatise about mechanics there - when talking about a mostly urban area...

RoastBeefDinner

L1011 wrote: »

Do you think you could offer something constructive to the thread rather than being pedantic?

L1011

RoastBeefDinner wrote: »

Do you think you could offer something constructive to the thread rather than being pedantic?

There's nothing pedantic in pointing out the absence of basis to your argument. You are advocating we move to a fraud- and ripoff-prone system for zero benefit on the other side. If people are going to fail their NCT they're going to fail it whoever gives it to them - unless they bribe them, of course. Which is much easier when its done by contractors.

As goes dealing with faulty lights the other 11.9 months of the year - that's the Guards job and they clearly aren't doing it. Your plan doesn't address that at all.

baaba maal

The pedantry is also misplaced- northeast Kildare is heavily urbanised, the rest of north Kildare is the least densely populated part of the county. The following map is the electoral divisions for Kildare and is based on having roughly equal populations:
http://www.leinsterleader.ie/news/local-news/changes-afoot-for-kildare-s-local-council-elections-2014-1-5901282

In terms of the OP- yes! There are loads of people who will get round to replacing/adjusting headlights the week of their NCT because doing it for normal road safety reasons is just tooooo difficult.

RoastBeefDinner

L1011 wrote: »

There's nothing pedantic in pointing out the absence of basis to your argument. You are advocating we move to a fraud- and ripoff-prone system for zero benefit on the other side. If people are going to fail their NCT they're going to fail it whoever gives it to them - unless they bribe them, of course. Which is much easier when its done by contractors.

As goes dealing with faulty lights the other 11.9 months of the year - that's the Guards job and they clearly aren't doing it. Your plan doesn't address that at all.

Firstly its not an argument I'm making,just partaking in a discussion and making some observations along the way.

The only thing I'm advocating is better road safety. Thats the BASIS of this thread.

If this is a discussion then I'm allowed to have opinions right? If they are wrong or right do you have to go analyse every single phrase,sentence I write?
You've made your point. You dont agree with the NCT not being centralised. Great I got that time and time again.Fraud exists in business's every where.

L1011

RoastBeefDinner wrote: »

Firstly its not an argument I'm making,just partaking in a discussion and making some observations along the way.

The only thing I'm advocating is better road safety. Thats the BASIS of this thread.

If this is a discussion then I'm allowed to have opinions right? If they are wrong or right do you have to go analyse every single phrase,sentence I write?
You've made your point. You dont agree with the NCT not being centralised. Great I got that time and time again.Fraud exists in business's every where.

This isn't the Harry Enfield "Women!" sketch - discussions don't consist of basic statements and agreements to them.

I feel that your view of what could fix this problem would do absolutely nothing and in fact make things worse - giving reasons as to why - and you're trying to complain that its not "constructive". You're the one who turned it to an argument.

RoastBeefDinner

L1011 wrote: »

I feel that your view of what could fix this problem would do absolutely nothing and in fact make things worse - giving reasons as to why -

As I said I got that back in post 6.

L1011

RoastBeefDinner wrote: »

As I said I got that back in post 6.

And you kept arguing, trying to claim that anything against your points wasn't "constructive" or was "pedantic", rather than actually addressing the points. As I said - you made this an argument. Not me.

RoastBeefDinner

L1011 wrote: »

And you kept arguing, trying to claim that anything against your points wasn't "constructive" or was "pedantic", rather than actually addressing the points. As I said - you made this an argument. Not me.

You carry on arguing with yourself there.;)

klairondavis

It's hardly just a north Kildare phenomenon. You'd hardly travel one mile of a busy road in the country without meeting a car with one faulty or badly adjusted headlight. The amount of people who drive around with no lights on whatsoever in low visibility is frightening. They don't seem to realise that their lights enable other drivers to spot them rather than simply illuminating up the road in front of themselves when it is dark.