Road traffic bill (soon to be act) 2016

GM228

bigroad wrote: »

Can you still drive the wrong way up a motorway at the legal speed limit and only get one point on your licence

It's 2 points for going the wrong way on a motorway, but you would find the charge of careless driving applied which is a mandatory court appearance and 5 points.

pa990

bigroad wrote: »

Can you still drive the wrong way up a motorway at the legal speed limit and only get one point on your licence and can you pass your car driving test at 17 and not get an eyesight test till your 70 ,thats 53 years later .

There's airways a silver lining

Cee-Jay-Cee

tossy wrote: »

Making it illegal for a member of the Gardai to use their discretion is the thin end of a very bad wedge for this country. We have a great police force in this country with (in the majority of cases) a very human touch, this is one more step towards the robot style policing we see in other countries.

I think the discretion will still be there. It'll just be the case that now there are no warnings but there's nothing to say that the Garda actually spotted the offence and has to act on it. Like for example a Garda doesn't have to stop someone with no seat belt. They can ignore it and let the person off and no one is going to actually complain about it and even if they did give a warning, again no one is going to complain.

Senecio

bigroad wrote: »

.....and can you pass your car driving test at 17 and not get an eyesight test till your 70 ,thats 53 years later .

Do you not need to pass an eye test to get you license in Ireland? When I exchanged my Australian license for an Irish one I had to have an eye test.

Marcusm

tossy wrote: »

Making it illegal for a member of the Gardai to use their discretion is the thin end of a very bad wedge for this country. We have a great police force in this country with (in the majority of cases) a very human touch, this is one more step towards the robot style policing we see in other countries.

The Garda can easily act as he has up until now but prefacing his caution with, "I suspect that you might have done XYZ" leaving him scope to assert if reprimanded that he did not believe that his suspicion amounted to reasonable grounds to believe.

Renegade Mechanic

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

They seem more interested in coming down hard on motorists than criminals.
What a Cuunt-try we live in.

That's because criminals operate outside the law. Motorists typically operate inside it, making them the easiest, most lucrative people to work with. Govt attitude can be summed up very quickly and easily here.

Your get 3 or 4 grand of a slap for denying the state money by using green diesel.

You get fined 80 quid and a slap on the licence for risking the destruction of an entire family unit through speeding.

Which do you reckon is more important

pa990

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

That's because criminals operate outside the law. Motorists typically operate inside it, making them the easiest, most lucrative people to work with. Govt attitude can be summed up very quickly and easily here.

Your get 3 or 4 grand of a slap for denying the state money by using green diesel.

You get fined 80 quid and a slap on the licence for risking the destruction of an entire family unit through speeding.

Which do you reckon is more important

Speeding.... destruction.. entire family....

That's a bit dramatic.

One use of green diesel, is a loss to the exchequer.
Speeding to work... My god.. I've killed 300 families this year.


Since I first got my licence I've killed about 35,640 people.

nice_guy80

cyclists should be above the law

Renegade Mechanic

pa990 wrote: »

Speeding.... destruction.. entire family....

That's a bit dramatic.

One use of green diesel, is a loss to the exchequer.
Speeding to work... My god.. I've killed 300 families this year.


Since I first got my licence I've killed about 35,640 people.

I never said either is bad, I'm no angel myself by any possible stretch... I just illustrated the point that it's impossible to kill anyone, defrauding the exchequer, yet there are smaller fines going to much more severe acts. It just shows where their priorities lie. If anyone ever looks at a new legislation and thinks it looks weird, they can apply that context and it'll make sense to them.

GM228

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

I just illustrated the point that it's impossible to kill anyone, defrauding the exchequer, yet there are smaller fines going to much more severe acts. It just shows where their priorities lie.

What we need to remember is the sentence is appropriate to the actual crime, not the potential effects of the crime. When you way up the actual severity of crime in general fraud is a more serious offence than the average motoring offence.

The average motoring offence is for speeding, using a mobile etc, not endangerment, but remember if the Gardaí believe the speed/phone use is so dangerous then you will be charged with dangerous driving which carries a potential €20,000 fine and/or imprisonment of 10 years on indictment, if you kill or injure someone you will be charged with dangerous driving and prosecuted facing such a sentence - so remind me where are the priorities?

jca

Jesus, spare me.... Unfollow.

Commotion Ocean

Can we have a road traffic bill, soon to become act where we can now legally mow down errant cyclists that disobey traffic lights or weave in and out of traffic?

biko

No, back on topic now.

Tigger

dfeo wrote: »

Can we have a road traffic bill, soon to become act where we can now legally mow down errant cyclists that disobey traffic lights or weave in and out of traffic?

biko wrote: »

No.

Chuckle

Anyway back to the subject
The letting your car be driven one is very interesting, say I let a learner driver drive accompanied and his designated driver abandons him and he drives home anyway. Am I responsible for his actions ?
I thought you couldn't make parents responsible for their childrens actions

allthedoyles

Senecio wrote: »

Do you not need to pass an eye test to get you license in Ireland? When I exchanged my Australian license for an Irish one I had to have an eye test.

Whats the point of an eyesight test . If you have the test and fail , and require spectacles , then drivers continue to drive without wearing the spectacles .

Is there a fine for not wearing glasses when driving ?

Raging_Ninja

Tigger wrote: »

Chuckle

Anyway back to the subject
The letting your car be driven one is very interesting, say I let a learner driver drive accompanied and his designated driver abandons him and he drives home anyway. Am I responsible for his actions ?
I thought you couldn't make parents responsible for their childrens actions

They're not making parents responsible for the actions of the child - they are making the owners of cars responsible for who they let use it.

Under the existing law in your hypothetical - what do you think the gardai and courts would say if they had an unaccompanied learner who came up with that excuse? It's still a crime, right?

cython

allthedoyles wrote: »

Whats the point of an eyesight test . If you have the test and fail , and require spectacles , then drivers continue to drive without wearing the spectacles .

Is there a fine for not wearing glasses when driving ?

At the risk of being a pedant, nowhere is there a requirement for "spectacles" when driving, but rather it is "corrective lenses", which can be satisfied by contact lenses in many cases. As to the need for corrective lenses and not wearing them, I do not know whether there is a fine (reasonably sure there is no point/on-the-spot fine, but there may be a charge of careless driving if you do not wear them, for example), but the fact of being able to go >50 years without a retest is farcical either way. I was told when I got the eye test for my provisional license, as it was, that I could just about drive without corrective lenses, but that it would be a bad idea as I only passed due to lax standards, so my licence does not bear the code for seeing to wear them. My prescription has only gotten stronger since then, so while my licence does not necessitate corrective lenses, I definitely should not be driving without them!

Buffman

Just to update this, according to RTE this was signed into law last week. The text of the act isn't online yet, but I don't think it'll be any different to the bill in the OP.

(Maybe a MOD can edit the thread title to 'Road traffic act 2016', thanks.)

GM228

Buffman wrote: »

Just to update this, according to RTE this was signed into law last week. The text of the act isn't online yet, but I don't think it'll be any different to the bill in the OP.

(Maybe a MOD can edit the thread title to 'Road traffic act 2016', thanks.)

Yes it was signed into law last week as The Road Traffic Act 2016 (21/2016).

allthedoyles

A man who lost his wife and daughter in a road crash caused by an unaccompanied learner driver has brought about a significant amendment to the new Road Traffic Act.
From now on car owners who give their vehicle to an unaccompanied learner driver will be held accountable in law.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/owners-to-be-accountable-if-car-driven-by-unaccompanied-learner-1.2928361

Its in the papers too. Who is going to give their car to a learner driver ?

Did the unaccompanied driver in this accident not have insurance ?

Is this about learner drivers that are insured on their parents policy ?

Atlantic Dawn

Giving Gardaí the power to seize cars with dangerous tyres should have been in the final draft of the act.

pa990

allthedoyles wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/owners-to-be-accountable-if-car-driven-by-unaccompanied-learner-1.2928361

Its in the papers too. Who is going to give their car to a learner driver ?

Did the unaccompanied driver in this accident not have insurance ?

Is this about learner drivers that are insured on their parents policy ?

Wait for the loopholes and workarounds, and the pieces that are impossible to detect and prosecute.

Buffman

pa990 wrote: »

Wait for the loopholes and workarounds, and the pieces that are impossible to detect and prosecute.

Ye, I think an obvious one with the new learner driver/owner law would be for the owner to just say the car was taken without consent. (A scenario actually mentioned in the act as a valid defence.)

It's going to be the owners word against the learner driver. And if the learner's already getting prosecuted for something like death by dangerous driving, having car theft added on isn't going to worry them.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

pa990

Buffman wrote: »

Ye, I think an obvious one with the new learner driver/owner law would be for the owner to just say the car was taken without consent. (A scenario actually mentioned in the act as a valid defence.)

It's going to be the owners word against the learner driver. And if the learner's already getting prosecuted for something like death by dangerous driving, having car theft added on isn't going to worry them.

Or the car is registered with learner driver.
Mammy has the policy in her name, with the learner as a named driver.

Buffman

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

There shouldn't be any solid line mandatory cycle lanes like that, if there are, complain to the local council. Any I've seen like you describe have been non-mandatory broken line cycle lanes which you can drive in. (AKA, a waste of paint!)

An example from Clane.

pa990

Buffman wrote: »

There shouldn't be any solid line mandatory cycle lanes like that, if there are, complain to the local council. Any I've seen like you describe have been non-mandatory broken line cycle lanes which you can drive in. (AKA, a waste of paint!)

An example from Clane.

That is the most rediculas road layout I've seen in a long time

bigroad

pa990 wrote: »

That is the most rediculas road layout I've seen in a long time

What clown in Clare Co council signed off on that.
What sort of Sort of stupid bazdarteds are employed in our Councils .
You wouldnt give them a Lego set to play with.

Phil.x

Patww79 wrote: »

How do you avoid driving in a cycle lane in places where the driving lane isn't wide enough for the car? Straddle two lanes?

And people get actual money for that type of planning.

Buffman

pa990 wrote: »

That is the most rediculas road layout I've seen in a long time

bigroad wrote: »

What sort of Sort of stupid bazdarteds are employed in our Councils .
You wouldnt give them a Lego set to play with.

Ye, that's why I'd be concerned that the new 20km/h speed limit will be abused by some councillors just pandering for votes. If we were using mph, I don't think a 12.4mph speed limit would have been approved.