Would you support an assumed liability rule in Ireland?

Detritus70

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118966807#Comment_118966807

Do you always and with no exception obey the speed limit? And have always done since obtaining your license?

We need to know this before accepting any further input from you.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118966905#Comment_118966905

ICYMI I'm not the one jumping up and down about cyclists breaking red lights.

Detritus70

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118966970#Comment_118966970

It's an argument that you can make, but it can boomerang back.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118966987#Comment_118966987

Boomerang all you like, it doesn't change the facts.

I'm not actually having a go at someone for breaking speed limits.

I'm having a go at someone for making a big song and dance about cyclists breaking red lights while breaking speed limits.

See the difference?

Detritus70

Just as an aside, I lived in Ireland over 20 years and moved back to Germany a few years ago.

In Ireland I witnessed abandoning cars in the middle of the street to get a packet of fags and a lottery ticket, using the turning lane to overtake traffic going straight, entering a roundabout in the wrong lane to overtake traffic, overtaking huge lines of cars following a truck and pushing back in when oncoming traffic appeared, overtaking me from behind as I was turning from a side road to a main road, general speeding, red lights seen as advisory only and quite a few things more. These things don't happen every now and then, I'm talking multiple times a day, every day, completely normal occurances, nothing out of the ordinary.

Back in Germany I would always drive with an eye to the above, constantly expecting the worst and after a few weeks I noticed that nothing was happening. You can drive relaxed and within the rules and no-one will try to overtake you going through a completely blind bend or cut you off, or make erratic turns or race you from the lights to overtake you. It always seemed to me that to the Irish the rules are an obstacle to be overcome to get what you want, in most of mainland Europe the rules are there for the benefit of everyone, something to help people to live together and something that gives certainty.

PS: I don't mean this in an accusatory or judgemental way, it's just my observation.

8valve

I would 100% support it, but I would 100% support a simultaneous campaign, from the likes of the insurance federation or RSA, that every vehicle be fitted with a dashcam, to negate the risk of opportunistic scammers.

As an aside:

For the second time in as many months, I have just completed a formal damage assessment report on a customer's bike, for insurance purposes.

Wthout breaching any confidentiality, both cases had the following similarities:

Both riders were struck from behind, travelling up and over the vehicle that struck them.

Both were hospitalised with catastrophic (but thankfully not fatal) injuries.

Both drivers claimed at the scene ''I didn't see him/her/they as I was blinded by the low sun'' (one kept driving and only turned back after realising they had been spotted by onlookers!!). Now, if i remember my old Rules of the Road book from the eighties when I was learning to drive, it said ''Drivers should slow down or stop if they are dazzled or vision is impaired by oncoming headlights or low sun in wintertime. Fair enough, but surely you'd noticed the lad breaking your fu(king windscreen with his pelvis/head as he clatters over your car like a thrown rag doll??!!

Time and again, I hear the following on the news: ''Today a cyclist died on road XYZ, when they were in a collision with a motor vehicle''. Sorry, Eamon or Mary McNewsreader, your autocue is faulty...it should be reading ''Today a cyclist was killed by the driver of a van/car/bus/truck when they were hit by the motor vehicle.

Whatever happened to slowing down, expecting the unexpected (including cyclists flouting traffic rules), and assuming everyone else is a fu(king eejit (as my aul lad taught me, on my first ever driving lesson)??

Moral of both stories? Don't cycle west in Ireland on a clear day after 12 noon!

magicbastarder

PS: I don't mean this in an accusatory or judgemental way, it's just my observation.

i doubt you'll get too many people here who would disagree with that post.

Ceramic

It's interesting that it's only the Common Law (or heavily Common Law Influenced) jurisdictions that have not gone this route, which likely means there's an incompatibility with Common Law. It's not applicable in the UK, Ireland, Malta or Cyprus, all of which have either full Common Law or hybrid/derived systems.

There are very significant differences in Common Law and Civil Law (Civil Code) jurisdictions in both criminal and civil law particularly around assumptions like this.

Romania's likely to be an outlier for other reasons.

Ireland would also have an issue with absolutely massive civil payouts which could make something like this extremely problematic.

There are possibly other approaches to this in an Irish legal context, but I'm not sure you could just directly implement the system the same way as Germany or NL etc.

JayPS 2288

Only today I was out walking with my parents and my aunt and uncle. We had to cross the road at a point where the footpath suddenly ends on both sides and there are no cross button crossings whatsoever.

The cars speed like a bat out of hell on this stretch, on their own they’d never get across.

I had to assert my position and step out when the car was 100 metres down the road. Stood in the middle of the road and guided them out.

They deliberately sped up, jumped on the horn and swerved around us. My dad was standing there nearly genuflecting and “apologising”, my dad told me I was wrong, the car was on the road and he had right of way and we should have waited.

No amount of logic would change his mind. The road is for cars, pedestrians have to know their place, it didn’t matter that they were slow and more inform, the car was king.

When attitudes like that persist and pedestrians themselves think they have to submit to the mighty car we will never tip the balance.

This situation is obviously not cycling related but the principle is the same.

magicbastarder

on the road i live on, the pedestrian lights stay green long enough for you to get not quite halfway across the road, if you're able to walk at a decent pace.

Pinch Flat

Sounds admirable, but will never work here. There'd be war and it would get politicised, so no politicians wanting to get reelected would put together a bill to implement it. Given our overwhelming car dependency and resistance to adopt the concept of personal responsibility, very unlikely.

Tenzor07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118970805#Comment_118970805

Shocking incident, people aren't nearly as competent at driving a car as they think and in this example a moment of rage behind the wheel could have meant 5 people being brought to hospital with serious injuries or death and that driver spending many years locked up behind bars...all for nothing more than slowing down for a minute.....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118971166#Comment_118971166

I complained about a similar set near us and they adjusted it a few weeks back. The green sequence was unchanged as far as I can tell but the amber man is lit for a really long time now to the point where I'm of the mind to see if I can cross around this T junction and end up on the starting side of the road if you follow before I get a red man. Previously it was like your one you needed to be nimble enough to cross once before you got a red.

magicbastarder

on the one beside us the amber light is lit for at least twice as long as the green. trying to get people to hurry up, no doubt.

I didn't think of it like that but now you mention it 😂

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118971166#Comment_118971166

I was turning right off Carysfort Ave into Stillorgan Park today. The green filter light for bikes turned amber before I even got into the main 'car lane' part of the junction.

ARX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118970805#Comment_118970805

Now where would they have gotten that idea?

Oh yeah: https://carlowccc.ie/2021/09/21/5917/

ARX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118967049#Comment_118967049

I've cycled the length and breadth of Europe, probably close on 20,000 km. From the Atlantic coast of France to the Belarussian border and from Monaco to Helsinki. I've cycled round the back of the Airbus factory and past farmers using oxen to plough their fields.

With the possible exceptions of south-eastern England and the south of France, nowhere did I see the ignorant driving that is so common in this country.

It's never going to change. Not in our lifetimes. The hand of Time will have effaced our great-grandchildren's gravestones, and Irish drivers will still be boorish and ignorant.

Detritus70

On the subject of cyclists not having completed training or Not Paying Road Tax Joe*, most cyclists are also motorists, seems a lot of people lose sight of that. I have a bicycle, car, motorbike and a Roller, a small 50 km/h electric moped, so you can't really view people as only cyclists or motorists.

Also, in Germany you do some kind of cycling course in school where the set up a mini model of a town complete with lights, signs and zebra crossing so you don't get killed in traffic, is there such a thing in Ireland?

*Yes, I know it's not road tax. But keeping in mid that 99.999% of cyclists are also motorists I would argue that every km they are on their bike instead of their car, they are not only saving the planet, but cause far less wear on the road, so I see this as a good thing.

JayPS 2288

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118974584#Comment_118974584

Less ware and tear on their ❤️ And less strain on the hospitals too 🚲

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118960684#Comment_118960684

JEsus you sure to put some serious effort into trolls. Gotta give you that at least

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118964138#Comment_118964138

A guy went into the back of me once probably 5kmh. I got a bit of a bump but was fine. I got out to see if he was ok and he is already holding his neck and complaining that it was very sore. The front of his car had its lights all smashed and the number plate hanging off. Not a scratch on mine. A walker came over and laughed at him and said you are in the wrong car for that mate. The look of confusion started me off laughing too. I think he was a new arrival to Ireland and had got his first car. Only reason I can think of for being so stupid. Anyway we swapped insurance details and left. I never heard anything after that. Hope his neck turned out alright.

magicbastarder

JimmyVik - if you think someone is being a troll, report it or ping a mod.

however; since the very reason DT seems to have joined the thread was to counter the 'cyclist deliberately throwing themselves under a truck' argument, i don't see anything actionable.

JayPS 2288

I have started a parallel thread in the motors forum seeing if they would accept an assumed liability rule for drivers found to be speeding in the lead up to an accident.

I wish I amalgamated both of these concepts into the one thread and posted it in the commuting and transport forum, but anyhow, here it is.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058243354/would-you-support-an-assumed-liability-rule-for-speeding-drivers/p1?new=1

magicbastarder

I doubt that will end well.