Near misses - mod warning 22/04 - see OP/post 822

Chuchote

Judges always fall for the sob story "I need my car for work" - yet surely it's up to the worker to consider that before endangering his licence.

I love Sean nos

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Size of the Garda Traffic Corps has fallen from 1,200 to 700 over past few years.

Even prior to the drop the level of enforcement wasn't great.

Being realistic, it'll be years before it's fixed. The ongoing scandals regarding the leadership, a gangland war, and a tight public purse mean that enforcing road traffic offences is way down the list of priorities.

Don't forget that fraud investigation practical training exercise that they forgot was even running.

And the laziness of the average guard.

ED E

Pinch Flat wrote: »

Antos Antics

Would put money on Fastway...

ED E

Chuchote wrote: »

One solution would be to take the car away if someone who's disqualified drives; if it's a borrowed car, tough on the person who lent it…

They impound and then crush in the UK but when a 98 fiesta costs €300 they just split it from their dole money, ahem, I mean income.

AndrewJRenko

I love Sean nos wrote: »

Don't forget that fraud investigation practical training exercise that they forgot was even running.

Remind me on that one please?

ED E

ED E wrote: »

They impound and then crush in the UK but when a 98 fiesta costs €300 they just split it from their dole money, ahem, I mean income.

Yeah , Tesco beside us has 3 cars sat on the road outside with hand drawn signs and mobile numbers for €300. Another practice I thought they outlawed a few years ago ? Can't have cars for sale on the road side? Gas thing is I'm regularly there for a few bits late in the evening and often see the Gardaí there stocking up for their shift. Mentioned it to them when I saw them there one night, they'd want to be blind not to see them there on the way in, and I got at best a shrug at worst a smirk :mad: And this is a regular thing, one car goes another takes it's place.

Only last week they were appealing for people to report teens joyriding these very same kind of cars in the local area. Boiled my f'n blood.

Kaisr Sose

Deleted User wrote: »

Mentioned it to them when I saw them there one night, they'd want to be blind not to see them there on the way in, and I got at best a shrug at worst a smirk :mad:

Policing? That would be a law enforcement matter ....:D

Type 17

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

Policing? That would be a law enforcement matter ....:D

Also, "it's a civil matter..." :rolleyes:

Annie get your Run

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Size of the Garda Traffic Corps has fallen from 1,200 to 700 over past few years.

Even prior to the drop the level of enforcement wasn't great.

Being realistic, it'll be years before it's fixed. The ongoing scandals regarding the leadership, a gangland war, and a tight public purse mean that enforcing road traffic offences is way down the list of priorities.

Just had a thought on this on the bike this morning. Surely be much easier and quicker to bring back traffic wardens and increase their powers to be more like a low level traffic police. They'd be employed by local councils and have powers to issue on the spot fines using an electronic device that registered the offense immediately so no way for people to get out of paying.

Although they couldn't have helped this morning with the construction van who nearly took out 4 oncoming cars on a blind bend doing at least 80KPH in a 50KPH zone. Luckily there was a farmers gate to my left and I nipped in there to avoid what I was sure was going to be a head on collision on the wet roads .

CramCycle

Chuchote wrote: »

Judges always fall for the sob story "I need my car for work" - yet surely it's up to the worker to consider that before endangering his licence.

Set a legal minimum for the fine or punishment rather than the current "upto x, y and z". Removes descretion.

Chuchote

CramCycle wrote: »

Set a legal minimum for the fine or punishment rather than the current "upto x, y and z". Removes descretion.

Or rather a legal percentage of income. It's not fair if someone earning €300 pays the same fine as someone earning €10,000.

buffalo

Chuchote wrote: »

Or rather a legal percentage of income. It's not fair if someone earning €300 pays the same fine as someone earning €10,000.

Shane Ross has vetoed that idea. Can't find any source now, but read it recently. He's focussing on the drink-driving legislation.

magicbastarder

i once had a car lifted by the council. it was obviously abandoned, and i rang the gardai - they said as long as it was in a legal parking spot and there was no other indication of crime, it was not going to be on their radar. so i rang the council and the conversation went something along the lines of:
'if there are plates on the car, there's not much we can do'
'ok, so do i have any other options?'
'well, if the car had no plates we could lift it as it would be considered abandoned'
'well, is there any other way i could get it classed as abandoned?'
'IF THERE ARE NO PLATES ON THE CAR WE CAN LIFT IT FOR YOU'
*sound of penny dropping*

magicbastarder

buffalo wrote: »

Shane Ross has vetoed that idea. Can't find any source now, but read it recently. He's focussing on the drink-driving legislation.

he can only do one transport related thing at a time when his otherwise voluminous brain is exercised with the topic of judicial appointments. i'm convinced enda and leo cooked up the maire whelan controversy to keep him occupied/prevent him from doing harm, for another few weeks.

ED E

Chuchote wrote: »

Or rather a legal percentage of income. It's not fair if someone earning €300 pays the same fine as someone earning €10,000.

The Finns are backing that concept off, its a costly endeavour for the police to have to verify income with the tax system before processing a ticket.

Chuchote

ED E wrote: »

The Finns are backing that concept off, its a costly endeavour for the police to have to verify income with the tax system before processing a ticket.

Shouldn't be. It should require one phone call.

mr spuckler

had a bad one this morning.

i filtered to the top of the line of traffic at a red light, a Nissan X-Trail was stopped in the advance stop box. when the light went green i pushed on fairly quickly to create a bit of a gap as the next 150m or so of road is fairly sketchy, goes downhill, has cars joining at an angle from the left and then narrows between parked cars to the point where 2 cars can barely pass against each other.

what i now know to be called Main St, Raheny.

anyway, i hear the X-Trail spinning its wheels as he guns it away from the lights and i sense we could have a problem. i take the lane as i always do here, have been squeezed far too many times. he overtakes me with a few inches to spare and races ahead to the next red light. when i pull alongside i gesture to him that he needs to give me more space, he gestures back to fvck off. so i pull ahead of him at the red light (to his left) rather than try to reason with someone who clearly wasn't the type for reason and i hear him shouting out the now open window that i should have moved in off the middle of the road.
light goes green, we both turn left and i know there's another pinch point almost straight away here where the cars are parked on the left. sure enough he overtakes me straight away and veers in so he's nearly clipping those parked cars. i'd anticipated something like that so had eased off and hence wasn't hit / forced into emergency stop.

worst incident i've experienced in an awful long time. pretty sure he had a child in the back seat too.
hoping my cameras have done their job here, will check the footage when i get home and will report if it looks half as bad as it felt.

Tombo2001

Something I've noticed quite a bit recently is that dangerous driving doesn't necessarily occur because of speed, but because of acceleration. A lot of roads in Dublin have a 50k limit......if the road is empty and someone is coming along at 50k from a distance that's fine. They can see you, you can see them.

Its the guy who is crawling along.....sees his 'opportunity' to overtake when their maybe isn't one.

And then there is the big rev movement and sudden burst of speed, lurch out to the right, lurch back in again....

Its all split second stuff, and between the swerving and the accelerating - I feel a lot of overtakes are done in an uncontrolled fashion - without necessarily breaking a speed limit.

Annie get your Run

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Something I've noticed quite a bit recently is that dangerous driving doesn't necessarily occur because of speed, but because of acceleration. A lot of roads in Dublin have a 50k limit......if the road is empty and someone is coming along at 50k from a distance that's fine. They can see you, you can see them.

Its the guy who is crawling along.....sees his 'opportunity' to overtake when their maybe isn't one.

And then there is the big rev movement and sudden burst of speed, lurch out to the right, lurch back in again....

Its all split second stuff, and between the swerving and the accelerating - I feel a lot of overtakes are done in an uncontrolled fashion - without necessarily breaking a speed limit.

Completely agree with this, can never understand it either. When I'm overtaking a bike I always do it slowly - also this means you don't need to give quite so much space (even though I do) so no need for the amateur dramatics! And when you're being passed by someone who does do it nice and slowly it makes such a big difference, they always get a wave & a smile from me.

magicbastarder

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Its the guy who is crawling along.....sees his 'opportunity' to overtake when their maybe isn't one.

And then there is the big rev movement and sudden burst of speed, lurch out to the right, lurch back in again....

had a funny one yesterday, downhill on newtownpark avenue. a BMW driver who fluffed his first overtaking manouevre when he realised there was stationary traffic in front of him, but overtook me a few hundred metres later. i was doing 54km'h as i passed the speed readout on the downhill, and next thing the BMW is passing me (completely on the opposite side of the road), i reckon doing at least 70km/h, and scares the bejesus out of a driver coming uphill.
to be fair to the BMW driver, he at least didn't do a close pass on me.

i think it was probably a 'he's only a cyclist, he can't be moving very fast' thought process, and possibly when he realised the speed i was doing, pride would not let him abandon his plan.

Chuchote

mr spuckler wrote: »

had a bad one this morning.

i filtered to the top of the line of traffic at a red light, a Nissan X-Trail was stopped in the advance stop box.
worst incident i've experienced in an awful long time. pretty sure he had a child in the back seat too.
hoping my cameras have done their job here, will check the footage when i get home and will report if it looks half as bad as it felt.

This is why people go through red lights (I'm not talking about the RLJs who sail through without looking, but those who go through calmly when it's safe, to get ahead of traffic.

It's why the Idaho Stop should be law in Ireland.

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Something I've noticed quite a bit recently is that dangerous driving doesn't necessarily occur because of speed, but because of acceleration.

Its all split second stuff, and between the swerving and the accelerating - I feel a lot of overtakes are done in an uncontrolled fashion - without necessarily breaking a speed limit.

This is exactly how car RLJs virtually always happen - people accelerating to get through lights at the last moment. Deadly dangerous.

It's uncontrolled, unthinking cycling and driving that's dangerous, not specifically speed or red light jumping or even close passing.

Kaisr Sose

Chuchote wrote: »

Shouldn't be. It should require one phone call.

What one earns and pays in tax is protected/subject to data protection legislation. Would you want the Garda to have access to that just by a phone call or accessing PULSE?

As for proportionality of fine to income, it's a grey area. Why should two people committing the same offence (say 60kmph in the same 50kph zone, on the same day /situation) be treated differently for the same offence?

Kaisr Sose

Annie get your Run wrote: »

Completely agree with this, can never understand it either. When I'm overtaking a bike I always do it slowly - also this means you don't need to give quite so much space (even though I do) so no need for the amateur dramatics! And when you're being passed by someone who does do it nice and slowly it makes such a big difference, they always get a wave & a smile from me.

Same for me!

Alanstrainor

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Something I've noticed quite a bit recently is that dangerous driving doesn't necessarily occur because of speed, but because of acceleration. A lot of roads in Dublin have a 50k limit......if the road is empty and someone is coming along at 50k from a distance that's fine. They can see you, you can see them.

Its the guy who is crawling along.....sees his 'opportunity' to overtake when their maybe isn't one.

And then there is the big rev movement and sudden burst of speed, lurch out to the right, lurch back in again....

Its all split second stuff, and between the swerving and the accelerating - I feel a lot of overtakes are done in an uncontrolled fashion - without necessarily breaking a speed limit.

I fear the uncertain/unconfident drivers more than the aggressive ones tbh. I'm always terrified when someone crawls past me during an overtake only to veer back without a mirror check. The golden rule of overtaking is to do so quickly.

AndrewJRenko

mr spuckler wrote: »

had a bad one this morning.

i filtered to the top of the line of traffic at a red light, a Nissan X-Trail was stopped in the advance stop box. when the light went green i pushed on fairly quickly to create a bit of a gap as the next 150m or so of road is fairly sketchy, goes downhill, has cars joining at an angle from the left and then narrows between parked cars to the point where 2 cars can barely pass against each other.

what i now know to be called Main St, Raheny.

anyway, i hear the X-Trail spinning its wheels as he guns it away from the lights and i sense we could have a problem. i take the lane as i always do here, have been squeezed far too many times. he overtakes me with a few inches to spare and races ahead to the next red light. when i pull alongside i gesture to him that he needs to give me more space, he gestures back to fvck off. so i pull ahead of him at the red light (to his left) rather than try to reason with someone who clearly wasn't the type for reason and i hear him shouting out the now open window that i should have moved in off the middle of the road.
light goes green, we both turn left and i know there's another pinch point almost straight away here where the cars are parked on the left. sure enough he overtakes me straight away and veers in so he's nearly clipping those parked cars. i'd anticipated something like that so had eased off and hence wasn't hit / forced into emergency stop.

worst incident i've experienced in an awful long time. pretty sure he had a child in the back seat too.
hoping my cameras have done their job here, will check the footage when i get home and will report if it looks half as bad as it felt.

Awful but not unusual - if you do report it, expect Garda to take a dim view of any shouty stuff between driver and cyclist.

magicbastarder wrote: »

i once had a car lifted by the council. it was obviously abandoned, and i rang the gardai - they said as long as it was in a legal parking spot and there was no other indication of crime, it was not going to be on their radar. so i rang the council and the conversation went something along the lines of:
'if there are plates on the car, there's not much we can do'
'ok, so do i have any other options?'
'well, if the car had no plates we could lift it as it would be considered abandoned'
'well, is there any other way i could get it classed as abandoned?'
'IF THERE ARE NO PLATES ON THE CAR WE CAN LIFT IT FOR YOU'
*sound of penny dropping*

I thought they would remove it after a certain number of days (28?) regardless of plates - see SDCC's list of cars due for removal.

RayCun

mr spuckler wrote: »

so i pull ahead of him at the red light (to his left) rather than try to reason with someone who clearly wasn't the type for reason and i hear him shouting out the now open window that i should have moved in off the middle of the road.
light goes green, we both turn left and i know there's another pinch point almost straight away

I have to ask
- he's just accelerated past you after one red light
- you know there's another pinch point after the second red light
- so why filter ahead of him?
Don't you know what is going to happen?

magicbastarder

Chuchote wrote: »

Judges always fall for the sob story "I need my car for work" - yet surely it's up to the worker to consider that before endangering his licence.

how about this for a classic example?

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/ban-lifted-for-taxi-driver-who-ran-down-passenger-1.3127165

schemingbohemia

Had a very close one yesterday evening cycling home along the Rock Road, Taxi driver came within i'd say 2 inches of my handlebars, felt like he was going very fast but probably 50km/h. I was in the cycle lane, hadn't had an incident with him beforehand, he just didn't care about my safety.
Pulled into the park at Booterstown to collect my thoughts and write down his plate number. A couple of cyclists came over and said "that was close!" So thankfully have a couple of witnesses. Tried ringing Traffic Watch, on hold for 10 minutes so gave up, rang again an hour later when i'd got home and same thing.
Rang this morning and got through straight away, not letting this one go, one too many and this was way too close.
When you think of the poor guy in Rathfarnham, I think we all need to inundate Traffic Watch with these reports, way too much dangerous driving going on.

Tombo2001

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I fear the uncertain/unconfident drivers more than the aggressive ones tbh. I'm always terrified when someone crawls past me during an overtake only to veer back without a mirror check. The golden rule of overtaking is to do so quickly.

Really - I'd have said that the golden rule of the overtake is to have plenty of time to do it.

How can doing it quickly make it safer?

mr spuckler

RayCun wrote: »

I have to ask
- he's just accelerated past you after one red light
- you know there's another pinch point after the second red light
- so why filter ahead of him?
Don't you know what is going to happen?

i pulled alongside him while he was stopped at the red to point out that he should have given me more space. at that stage i'm by his passenger window.

i could tell then by his demeanour that he wasn't for polite reasoning and most likely for shouting abuse so i had 3 options. sit there and take it / shout back, push back to behind him or filter ahead of him.

as the light went green i remembered the pinch point.

in return i have to ask..
- he's just had a cyclist point out to him that he overtook dangerously and politely requested that he give more space
- he's got a child in his car
- why does he then deliberately swerve his much heavier vehicle towards me in a dangerous manner?