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Solving the “middle lane hoggers” problem.
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AndrewJRenko wrote: »The idea of a once-in-a-lifetime test is crazy. There should be regular retesting, maybe once every five years or so.
Unpopular idea, people would just say it's all a money making racket just as they do with the NCT.
Also lets face it the driving test is a bit of a test in your acting ability, most people don't drive like that as soon as they pass.0 -
Unpopular is an understatement, but that doesn't mean it is a bad idea. I'm old enough to remember the wrecks that were on the road before the NCT, how often you'd be helping people to push start, or push their breakdown off the road. It's very difficult to prove, but I suspect the NCT has played a significant part in the reduction in road deaths over the years.Unpopular idea, people would just say it's all a money making racket just as they do with the NCT.
Also lets face it the driving test is a bit of a test in your acting ability, most people don't drive like that as soon as they pass.
People are fairly used to the idea of retesting in all aspects of their professional life, so why not driving?0 -
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Yet it is the standard in most if not all of the world. Even in Canada which has the most extreme "graduated driver licensing" laws, AFAIK once you've done all the graduated tests, that's it. After a person has their license, compliance with road law is enforced by fines and potential disqualification, and much of the Western world now has a points-on-license system like the Irish penalty points regime.AndrewJRenko wrote: »The idea of a once-in-a-lifetime test is crazy. There should be regular retesting, maybe once every five years or so.
More like a solution in search of a problem. I think some people just get their kicks on the idea drowning motorists in ever more stupid, disproportionate and pointless regulations. At least, that seems to be what is going on here.AndrewJRenko wrote: »Unpopular is an understatement,
And how would the State actually run such a test? They cannot even guarantee a test within 6 months for the once-in-a-lifetime test because the testing system is so dysfunctional, how in blazes would it handle people doing driving tests every 5 years?
Far better candidates are:It's very difficult to prove, but I suspect the NCT has played a significant part in the reduction in road deaths over the years.
1) Less societal tolerance for driving home after a few jars. It still happens - and it still kills - but on nowhere near the scale of the 1970s.
2) Motorways. We've replaced a lot of heavily traffic single carriageways with high quality motorways and 2+2 dual carriageways.
Some jalopy having an imbalance in their parking brake or not having the Irish language name of the county above the registration plate tends not to cause the same danger as driving "just down the road" after six pints.
Because:People are fairly used to the idea of retesting in all aspects of their professional life, so why not driving?- Ireland already has among the safest roads in the world
- It isn't done anywhere else in the world.
- Mechanisms already exist to penalise motorists who demonstrate improper driving.
- The State has proven itself incapable of running a functioning driver testing system.
- The idea is disproportionate, burdensome, excessive and bat*** crazy.
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Unpopular idea, people would just say it's all a money making racket just as they do with the NCT.
Also lets face it the driving test is a bit of a test in your acting ability, most people don't drive like that as soon as they pass.
Licences have to be renewed every 10 years anyhow. A rigorous rules of the road would be a start, you might still act the bollix but you couldn't claim that it was OK. Perhaps a simple video test could be devised, and if people had problems with that give them a road test.
As usual, they screwed up with the new driving licences as you had to go to the NDLS anyway.0 -
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Except that enforcement levels are negligible here. When you have 98% of motorists break urban speed limits, it is clear that something is seriously wrong with enforcement.Yet it is the standard in most if not all of the world. Even in Canada which has the most extreme "graduated driver licensing" laws, AFAIK once you've done all the graduated tests, that's it. After a person has their license, compliance with road law is enforced by fines and potential disqualification, and much of the Western world now has a points-on-license system like the Irish penalty points regime.
The problem is the 2 or 3 people killed each week on our roads and the 9 or 10 people seriously injured. It's a fairly significant problem.More like a solution in search of a problem. I think some people just get their kicks on the idea drowning motorists in ever more stupid, disproportionate and pointless regulations. At least, that seems to be what is going on here.
That backlog number was down to a third of that level about a year ago.And how would the State actually run such a test? They cannot even guarantee a test within 6 months for the once-in-a-lifetime test because the testing system is so dysfunctional, how in blazes would it handle people doing driving tests every 5 years?
https://www.thejournal.ie/driving-test-wait-times-2-4518992-Mar2019/
The longest wait time is <8 weeks, with most of them 4-5 weeks.
https://www.rsa.ie/waitingtimes
Yep, they're certainly significant factors too. It's near impossible to attribute improvements like this directly to particular policy developments.Far better candidates are:
1) Less societal tolerance for driving home after a few jars. It still happens - and it still kills - but on nowhere near the scale of the 1970s.
2) Motorways. We've replaced a lot of heavily traffic single carriageways with high quality motorways and 2+2 dual carriageways.
Some jalopy having an imbalance in their parking brake or not having the Irish language name of the county above the registration plate tends not to cause the same danger as driving "just down the road" after six pints.
We still have widespread social tolerance for bad driving such as speeding, mobile phone use and general inattention to driving.Because:- Ireland already has among the safest roads in the world
- It isn't done anywhere else in the world.
- Mechanisms already exist to penalise motorists who demonstrate improper driving.
- The State has proven itself incapable of running a functioning driver testing system.
- The idea is disproportionate, burdensome, excessive and bat*** crazy.
1) Roads are neither safe nor dangerous. Drivers are frequently dangerous.
2) Neither was the plastic bag tax, or the smoking ban.
3) They don't work. When you have 98% of motorists breaking speed limits, it's fair to say that the current mechanisms don't work.
4) The State is currently running a functioning driver testing system
5) We have 2 or 3 people being killed on the roads each week. If there was any other similar cause of harm, the State would be all over it like a rash.
But speaking of solutions looking for problems and disproportionate burdens, you'll never guess who thought that tests and licences for cyclists would be a good idea.0 -
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The only reason cyclists don't hurt or kill more pedestrians is that we learn by instinct to get the F@%& out of their way when they're riding on footpaths and "negotiate" with them at lights. Even at that most pedestrians will have had some close calls. I used to use the Sean O'Casey footbridge in Dublin, and I almost never used it without having to "negotiate" with two-wheeled lawbreakers. Which makes the complaints by two-wheeled lawbreakers about motorist lawbreaking seem rather galling. A textbook case of the pot calling the kettle black.hans aus dtschl wrote: »You're dead right.
We need less regulation for motorists, who are known through government-funded surveys to be breaking laws in high numbers, and more regulation for cyclists, who are truly a scourge on our roads and are killing ones of people a decade.
As to the idea of "less" regulation or "more" I couldn't care less. I want appropriate regulation, that is, adequate but not excessive, for all road users.
Fine - if their measures are proportionate. Such should of course take into consideration that:The RSA have said that they want to achieve lower deaths resulting from poor motorist actions, and are actively targeting lower numbers. We need to tell them to lay off.
1) Irish drivers are already heavily regulated.
2) Irish road fatalities are among the lowest in the world by all relative measures.
Good, and long may it continue. But according to some here there's no such thing as a "safe" or "dangerous" road, it's only down to drivers. So if you have a long distance single carriageway with 20,000 vehicles a day and with crossings and turns everywhere, there should be no need to upgrade it because it is impossible for a road to be "dangerous".The NTA and TII are also actively funding billions of euro worth of road schemes to reduce fatalities and injuries too.
ARJ raised the point with his claim of 98% of drivers breaking ubran speed limits. So let's take him at his word, say that's true, there's a problem. Such an insane figure, like 98% of motorists speeding, should be leading to something like, a very high number of road deaths. Yet it's not happening. It isn't linked to anything because there's nothing there. Less than 1/3 of road deaths occur in urban areas and the number that are, is of a total that is tiny by international standards. So the number, on a prima facie basis, is meaningless and of no real consequence. Something else must be going on. It just so happens that my experience as a road user - both as a pedestrian and a motorist - explain why ARJs 98% figure is totally meaningless.But we don't need to do any of these. And we definitely don't need to achieve better driver behaviour.
As a pedestrian
As a pedestrian, the only things I've ever seen motorists do that made me feel threatened or unsafe had nothing whatsoever to do with speed. Nothing. The worst example is in heavy traffic, sometimes motorists will 'jockey for position' and make a turn that they can't finish and may end up blocking the pedestrian crossing. For example, in Dublin, if you want to get from the National Museum across from Merrion Square to Pearse station, you'll have to cross Clare St. Pedestrians only get 10 seconds or so of "green man" there and there is a long enough wait between them, so a large crowd of pedestrians can gather to wait for it. If traffic is heaving on Clare St, motorists turning onto it might start their turn on a green light but not be able to complete it, so they will be on the junction when the lights change. On a number of occasions, I've had to (along with a large crowd of other pedestrians) try to cross within the time allowed despite the fact that irresponsible drivers had almost totally blocked the crossing and we'd have to filter between bumpers. Which would take longer than the green+yellow man light phases. Sometimes even buses do it, you get the green man but there's a bus 50% past the crossing. Then you're not going anywhere fast.
And yet the people who do this are travelling at the grand high speed of 0km/h. They aren't speeding, but they're creating serious danger just by being in the wrong place.
On the other hand, in the last place I lived, I had a roughly half mile maybe a little more to walk (or drive) to the nearest urban village if I wanted to visit the mini market or take away. The village also had on its outskirts one of those "Your Speed is (whatever)" signs, the ones that show the driver a number in green if they're at or below the limit, or red if above. I was walking home from the shop (on a footpath) one night when a driver on the other side passed one of these signs and it showed the drivers speed - 65kph in a 50kph zone. I didn't care, they were on the road, I was on the footpath, it made no difference to me and I wouldn't have much cared whether I knew the passing cars' speed or not. That driver surely was one of ARJs 98%, but as a pedestrian, I did not feel threatened in the slightest. And with good reason.
As a pedestrian, if I have a choice between dealing with two types of drivers to deal with:- A driver who always obeys traffic controls and is careful never to block pedestrian crossings, but is a little lead-footed "on the straight."
- A driver who never breaks a speed limit but frequently mishandles junctions, up to including blocking pedestrian crossings to "get into position."
As a motorist
Ireland is unique in that it applies "urban" speed limits way out into the countryside far from the villages or towns they are supposedly protecting. I think I read some planning document on boards years ago that suggested urban areas should have "gateway zones" whereby urban limits are applied 1km out of town or something? Not sure, but there seems to be a lot of that in the Irish countryside. There are few other types of areas where Irish speed limits are relatively low by international standards.
On the continent for example they rarely post numerical speed limits. On each national border, you might find a speed board that explains the speed limit laws of the country, like this, this or this. I don't have a lot of experience driving on the continent, but in countries that do this, I think they're relatively good about terminating the urban limits at a reasonable point leaving a village or town.
By contrast, Ireland is full of example of "gateway zones" like this, where an urban limit applies a good half mile before the village it's supposedly protecting. But anyone who passes that sign at more than 60kph is an "urban speeder" even though there's little other than green fields for some distance. So it's possible that many of ARJs 98% only "speed" in "urban" areas where the characterisation of such is something of a stretch.
Correct. The only people driving in Ireland with full Irish licenses who "were never tested" were those who got their drivers licenses in the post office in the 1960s and those who got their Provisional Licenses upgraded in the amnesty of '79 I think that was.And we ESPECIALLY don't need training and testing for those people who were never tested, or were never tested on a motorway.
So if the average age of the recipient of a Post Office or Amnesty license was 30, then most of those people are now in their 70s or 80s. Everyone else after '79 was tested. Now, if no-one sought to retest those people in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s or 2010s, I don't know why it should be so urgent now. As to the "need" to retest people on motorways:
1) Motorway driving is the easiest kind of driving possible. Urban driving requires the most training/practice and that's what people are tested on.
2) How would someone in Donegal do their "motorway test?" Do it in Belfast? 0 -
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