Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

Paddigol

God bless the aul local councillors…

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wexford/wexford-district/notorious-wexford-road-to-feature-in-rte-prime-time-special-on-road-accidents-and-fatalities/a1661987546.html#:~:text=Councillor%20Lisa%20McDonald%20speaking%20on%20Prime%20Time%20about%20the%20Duncannon%20Line.&text=A%20Wexford%20road%20which%20has,Time%20this%20Thursday%2C%20April%2011.

"There’s been umpteen deaths on the Duncannon Line,” she said. “I know all too well, I live just off it. We’re constantly told speed and driver error etc are responsible, but we can’t just accept that.”

Yes, because that would be to actually face up to reality and accept a level of personal responsibility for our own actions. Much easier to lay the blame somewhere else… de gubbermint or de roads.

Meanwhile, in the same article… "Speeding remains a major factor in road traffic fatalities, disproportionately affecting male drivers. 87 per cent of drivers killed while driving above an appropriate speed were male, according to the latest RSA data." And in the same paper… https://www.independent.ie/regionals/louth/news/garda-arrested-in-connection-with-death-of-popular-louth-gaa-coach-niall-maceneaney/a920289378.html#:~:text=A%20member%20of%20An%20Garda,but%20remains%20suspended%20from%20duties.

Macy0161

Gardai, RSA and Politicians will all dance around the only thing that will make a real difference - enforcement and the fear of enforcement.

That means camera technology, both State and Road User, and quick and decisive follow up for all road offences including parking. If that nettle isn't grasped in the current faux outrage, it will never be grasped, because "shooting fish in a barrel, joe"

Mefistofelino

The RSA's position reminds me of an old Goon Show sketch

Minister: I called you Heads of Services together to break the news. Gentlemen, apparently for the last
three years, we've been at war.
Milligan: I say, it sounds jolly dangerous!
Seagoon: Who are we at war with?
Minister: That's what I keep asking myself. If only we knew, we could tell a policeman.

ARX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122001929#Comment_122001929

Enforcement won't happen, because it would be unpopular. We want safe roads, but not if it means giving up Instagram.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122000685#Comment_122000685

I'm fairly sure that's the first time she's ever raised a significant issue about their budget. It's a bit late now Liz.

fat bloke

Seven additional charges for man charged over fatal hit and run of student Joe Drennan

When we talk about journalistic accident reporting language, it's of often you see "ploughed into" being used.

https://jrnl.ie/6351203

CramCycle

DELETED - discussion of ongoing court case

JMcL

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122001894#Comment_122001894

I hate that road. AFAIK it's a typical garrison road built in a straight line back in the day to get the redcoats from A to B as quickly as possible, and now consists of gobshites in metal boxes going from A to B too quickly.

It's narrow, no shoulder, and the surface is awful in places - kms of washboard. The intermittent tree cover also results in area of deep shade on bright days to add to the fun (of course drivers don't moderate their speed).

None of which detracts from your main point

nilhg

Watching Prime Time, neither the RSA man, the guard or the minister would inspire too much confidence, all doing their best to pass the buck….

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122007708#Comment_122007708

Certainly no sign of any significant strategic or operational change. More of the same….

What was it that Einstein used to say?

LeoD

Didn't watch Primetime as I assumed it was going to be garbage and only make my blood boil more. However, I think we need to stop vilifying drivers - car manufacturers need to be held responsible for the danger and destruction their products are causing. Human behaviour is what it is so giving someone a vehicle that allows them (and practically encourages them) to drive as they like will only have one outcome. I cannot unlock and operate my mobile phone without it first authenticating that I am the registered user and have valid access to a network - this would be something so easy to implement with motor cars - the vehicle simply won't move until it checks that the driver has a valid licence and insurance and the vehicle is taxed and NCT'd. Driving behaviour monitoring technology can be used prevent aggressive driving (this tech has been available for years) - aggressive accelerating/braking/cornering/etc simply wouldn't be possible. Driving history can be analysed - if you display a pattern of poor driving technique the car can simply warn you that it will no longer operate if you are behind the wheel. Distracted driving? Not a problem and easy to fix with facial recognition. Breaking speed limits? Impossible as vehicle's speed will be capped at whatever road you are on at the time - this info is so easy for tech to detect but car manufacturers are deliberately faffing about on this also. Cars could be made really safe in the morning but this does not appeal to the manufacturers - they are more concerned with investing billions on a far off fantasy future of self-driving motor vehicles rather than resolving the road safety issues that are caused 100% by their products. Maybe it's to do with motor vehicle's main selling point - the idea of freedom/independence - so putting controls like this is simply not acceptable to shareholders? As long as we continue to argue about drivers and their behaviour, the roads, the bad bend, the Gardaí, hi-vis, etc, we let car manufacturers and the design of their products away with murder.

Paddigol

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122008936#Comment_122008936

There's sense to many of those ideas, but (and I'm a daily driver) go out and do a vox pop of the drivers who are being vilified and get their views on how they would greet restrictions on their use of the car. The bottom line is that we all bear a responsibility for the direction society goes. There's no vilification of drivers per se, but there is nothing wrong with highlighting the shocking attitude and behaviour of specific drivers and driver behaviour. Nothing forces me to press the accelerator harder. Or to pick up my phone in the car. Or to look away when I see the light turning amber, or to pretend I don't see the person at the pedestrian crossing.

I'm firmly of the view that changing drivers' psyche is the key to making the roads safer. The car makers will follow the demand, not the other way around. The Qashqai was really the first of its kind in Europe - people had plenty of alternative choices, of traditional car types, but they decided to switch in their droves to unnecessarily large SUV type cars, and now we have urban centres rammed with massive vehicles including a bizarrely high number of Land Rovers and Range Rovers in Dublin 4. That's a manufacturer throwing an idea out there and us deciding that, yes, that's what we want.

WE are the main problem, much more so than the inanimate objects we drive. And at the end of the day, car manufacturers don't really care what we drive as long as we keep buying their cars. I think trying to blame shareholders for the carnage on the roads is a complete cop out.

Until it become socially unacceptable to be an a$$hole behind the wheel, then very little will change. When societal attitudes change on any issue, progress is made. It's the same with gun control in the US. Everyone knows what needs to happen, but society can't quite bring itself to do what's right and necessary. So on they limp, with "thoughts and prayers" every other year when some tragic mass shooting occurs. All the rest of the gun deaths… we'll pretend we don't see those. Carry on.

Hurrache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122008936#Comment_122008936

It's always someone or something else's fault isn't it.

LeoD

If hundreds of people were losing limbs while cutting their lawns we'd look at the design of their lawn mowers rather than telling them they're using it wrong. We can ignore the basics of human behaviour and spend billions trying to compensate for poorly designed products.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122009294#Comment_122009294

The car makers will follow the demand, not the other way around. 

You are assuming that car manufacturers give a toss about their customers - they don't. They care about their shareholders who care about their dividends. Car manufacturers rarely (and I can only think of one occasion (Volvo & seatbelts)) where their designs were willingly designed in the best interests of their customers and others.

The worst example I can think of is the Ford Pinto & how Ford decided it was better to let people die horribly in fires & pay off their families than spend the money changing what really was a bad design.

However, even nowadays, they are steering people towards larger, heavier and less pedestrian friendly designs.

People shouldn't kid themselves that motor manufacturers give a toss about anything other than the bottom line!

Paddigol

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122010061#Comment_122010061

I never suggested they cared about their customers?? No Plc cares about its customers - the very model of Capitalism dictates that companies will chase profit. Sometimes there's a small overlap where caring for customers will also provide immediate tangible benefit to the company, and clearly a company will be harmed by negative publicity caused by bad customer reviews, but for the most part they just look at the P&L accounts.

What I was saying was that if customer demand is for a specific new model, that's where the sales will be, and the company that can harness that demand best will make the most profit. But we don't give a crap about those kind of safety features - if a car company came out tomorrow with a model that automatically blocked mobile phones in a car and automatically limited speed to the restriction on the road its travelling, people would not flock to it. They'd see it as a limitation on their enjoyment of the car.

So its a two-way street and it goes right back to my point of lack of personal responsibility. It will take the EU/ governments to start demanding increased safety features before they are introduced.

In the meantime, drivers need to be held accountable for the manner in which they drive their cars - and lets not forget that plenty of people have no problem driving safely without incident - rather than suggesting that they are somehow absolved of responsibility because cars have an inherent capacity to be driven dangerously.

Paddigol

Like I said, I'm all for increasing restrictions on cars. But you're arguing for something different, closer to absolving us of responsibility for our own actions. That's a very dangerous mindset to promote and arguably is a mindset that already exists, one which we need to do more to push back against.

nilhg

I'm aware that some insurance companies insist on a "black box" being installed in the car that monitors driver behavior, I've never seen any feedback on how that works apart from talking to a few fathers who were glad of it and had strongly impressed on their beginner driver children (usually sons) that they better behave because big brother was watching.

Edit, found this: https://coverinaclick.ie/blog/post/black-box-insurance-ireland

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122011488#Comment_122011488

My daughter's old job used to use them to halve premiums. Very simple, reports back location and speed, if you break the speed limit X times your premium goes up. The amount of people who would argue with her over the phone, they weren't actually speeding, the council made a mistake with the limit in the area, it was OK because its a higher limit in a few km. It would be simple, easy, and just have it report to the Gardai or RSA and auto impose penalty points, lock out your license by having it scan when you get in, and if caught driving without it on either lose the car or a big fine like with agri diesel. Of course, all this needs more Gardai for enforcement.

LeoD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122010462#Comment_122010462

I think you will find that the motor industry will create the demand rather than react to it. The astronomical amount they spend on advertising creates and drives demand. I don't think too many people would rationally think they must have a 2 tonne SUV to drop the kids to school but slick and subtle marketing has convinced them otherwise.

blackwhite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122013044#Comment_122013044

No Irish Government would propose implementing 24/7 active surveillance & location tracking on every vehicle - and any government that did would be hammered by the electorate for it. Whilst ultimately well-intended, it would be be seen as significant over-reach. It isn't that big a leap to imagine a situation where it gets leaked that a high-profile politicians car was tracked regularly calling to someone's house to infer infidelity or corruption.

What might be able to be sold, is having it as a level on the penalty points system. Say if a driver reaches 7/8 points then they are required to have a tracker installed (at their own cost) for maybe 24 months.

Paddigol

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021441#Comment_122021441

Look, I know how advertising works. But I also rail against this idea that we're not responsible for our own decisions and actions, that we can pawn it all off on 'the motor industry'. What restrictions do we place on car advertising? The more you go down this route the more we're getting to the point where we're saying "it wasn't Dave's fault he hit the ditch at 110kmph in an 80kmph zone, he was just caught up in the vibe created by the car ads"?

We're probably arguing for the same point from different angles. Would I be bothered if they banned car ads, made black boxes mandatory, speed limiter automatically installed, compulsory mobile phone blockers, infotainment systems illegal, restricted choice of car colours - bright yellow, red, pink, orange - and banned tinted windows and modified cars? No. How likely is that - or any one of them even - to happen? I think changing people's attitude to cars and what they should be entitled to with them, how they perceive the roads should be shared etc, should be a priority.

I'd be interested to hear the experience of people who've lived abroad - how different is car culture in different countries?

Seth Brundle

Imagen Cotter announces her retirement...

https://m.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/cycling/i-didnt-nearly-die-two-years-ago-just-to-spend-my-days-on-this-planet-feeling-unhappy-ex-irish-champion-imogen-cotter-announces-retirement/a1624813903.html

Paddigol

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022936#Comment_122022936

Fair play to her for taking charge of her own destiny. There's regret there for sure, from cycling fans, of a potential that may never have been realised. But it's only a sport… thankfully it sounds like she's heading in the right direction in her recovery and you can only wish her the very best. But it again goes to show the absolute devastation that road traffic 'accidents' have on thousands of people every year despite not even being deemed newsworthy. Had Imogen Cotter not been a pro athlete we'd likely never have heard of this incident and she'd have been left to battle the injuries and scars alone.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021684#Comment_122021684

It could easily be done so that its not active survellience, it is only notifying if parameters are breached. You are right in that they would never allow it but while they may dress it up as GDPR or nanny stateism, its basically because too many voters wold risk getting put off the road and they know some independent would get in purely on the "Ill act to get rid of this". And there in lies the problem, we don't like people dying on the roads but alot of people have deciuded conciously or otherwise, that the benefits to them are more important than the negatives to society.

blackwhite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122023108#Comment_122023108

It's not just the roads attitude though - it's a resistance to anything seen as too much oversight in general that's prevalent in Ireland.

You can guarantee that the ICCL would consider it to be active surveillance - or at the very least capable of being abuse to become active surveillence - and would campaign against it on principle.

Look at the opposition to allowing the Gardaí make use of facial recognition technology, and that would only apply to fixed location CCTV cameras. Imagine the reaction to trying to impose a mandatory tracking device (because that's what it would be portrayed as) into every motor vehicle.

blackwhite

https://www.irishtimes.com/transport/2024/04/15/traffic-light-cameras-to-be-place-by-early-next-year-eamon-ryan/#:~:text=The%20cameras%2C%20which%20catch%20motorists,before%20being%20rolled%20out%20nationwide.

Something that should have been rolled out widely 20 years ago.

Hopefully the bus lane cameras won't be far behind, and yellow-box cameras also.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122023140#Comment_122023140

I know it will never be signed off on, all I am saying is that it would solve alot of issues and I would be in favour of it. I say this as a typical Irish person who would fall foul of these observations but I damn well wouldn't if they were imposed.

I remember when drunk drivers in the early noughties used to drive at a snails pace in the country and take every back roads to avoid checkpoints until they simply cut out or at least redued drinking. I went home recently and it is the same as the late 80s early 90s, no one gives a sh1t, and to point it out it to invite ire form the locals. The only positive was that the drinking culture is less than it was but the attitude to drink driving hasn't changed.

LeoD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122023140#Comment_122023140

Tracking devices already exist in many cars, they just don't do a whole lot. eg: sat nav units know where you are and will indicate the speed limit of the road - what's to stop that info being linked to the car's power unit? Actually I think there is a new EU law that new cars are meant to have limiters based on road speed limit but due to motor industry lobbying, the intervention is very light touch and can be easily ignored by drivers. Higher spec cars also have facial recognition that will inform you if it detects you as being distracted so this 'oversight' tech is widely used already. But I understand the outcry about big brother will also come from clowns going around with a smart phone in their pocket.

LeoD

The Irish legal services industry cartel also has a huge part to play in the general recklessness on the roads. I can completely understand why guards have given up on road safety when you see the effort involved in trying to prosecute people for something as commonplace as speeding. A half day in court, a sob story, a dopey judge, a missing full stop or some other bs issue with the summons - take your pick, so many chances for defendants to get off scot free. We had a local councillor and barrister who avoided the possibility of a driving ban by getting his court dates for 2 separate offences postponed - this allowed some of the points on his licence to expire before the rescheduled court appearance and remove to posibility of a ban if convicted.