Increase in road deaths - questions need to be asked

mullinr2

There seems to be an awful amount of road deaths since the new year especially among the younger road users. What needs to be done? It seems that speed is still a huge issue and that young drivers especially young men have not grasped the dangers of speeding. The crash in Carlow where 3 young people died was because of speed, there's no point sugar coating it. Do young men need more intense lessons and training than young women?

Charles Babbage

The lessons tell you what speed to go at, but a certain proportion of drivers quite deliberately decide to do a much higher speed.

Another proportion are coked up, smoking something or pissed.

Perhaps electronic devices should be made compulsory until you have established a clear pattern of driving safely.

freshpopcorn

I can't comment on any individual incident.

However I have seen lots of Dangerous Driving videos on TikTok. I think peer pressure is a massive issue.

I'm not talking about doing a doughnut in a carpark but excessive speed and dangerous manovers on rural roads, built up areas.

Then there's videos of them just laughing at Gardai, summons, etc.

Pinch Flat

A lot of young drivers use the roads irresponsibly, speed and lack of anticipation seems to be the norm. it's particularly depressing to see newly qualified N drivers using the roads recklessly - they done a theory test and prescribed lessons yet still drive recklessly.

Musicrules

I think it's an issue that we have in many areas of society. Many young men feel invincible and think they can do what they like. It's clear that something needs to change within our education system to teach young men about improving their behaviour. But if you suggest that then you'll have the masculinists up in arms.

tomhammer..

There's little enforcement round here anyway

No cameras on any roads out of town according to the map last time I checked

No gards about so ya can do pretty much as you like mostly aside from the very occasional checkpoint

They could start by not advertising the location of vans on a gosafe map - I'm assuming they still do it?

2nd the point above about drivers . Put all young drivers on car monitors

L1011

Enforcement has all but vanished, bar GoSafe cameras which are not easy to actually place on bad roads. I've seen two checkpoints in the two years since the end of the pandemic, waved through both (discs are all up to date), and I'm probably driving more now.

The spike in cars going around with blatantly illegal and quick to pull over things like the black-on-grey reg plates shows that there is either a lack of resources or a lack of giving a toss amongst the RPU.

Drug usage is through the roof across the entire country, which won't be helping.

I see quite an amount of bad driving! I've had numerous drivers overtake me while I've been stopped at red lights,

and one of those times there were pedestrians crossing! Deaths will continue to rise & it doesn't matter what regulations

you bring in, people will continue to drive as they feel free to do so as their belief is 'it won't happen to them'

Perhaps dash cams should be compulsory in all vehicles?

Padre_Pio

Enforcement of nearly all driving laws is gone, apart from speeding vans which are for profit.

Used to be that people would break an orange light, amber gamblers. Now on any given day, at any given junction, you will see people break red lights. I routinely see people break red lights at pedestrian crossings if no one is crossing the road, rather than wait an extra 10 seconds.

Parking is another thing. Double parking, parking on yellow lines, people just don't care and it's not confined to any demographic. It's across the board.

One thing local to me is new houses built with no driveway, next to a junction. So the house owners park their cars on the road, blocking traffic. People in traffic likely get p*ssed, so they break the red light, sometimes two or three cars at a time. No enforcement and it's just a done thing. If I'm coming from the other direction, I'll wait a few seconds after the light goes green before I move off.

It's gone beyond ridiculous, the gardai are a joke. They command no respect, and therefore deserve no respect.

colm_mcm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800459#Comment_121800459

As far as I know…The problem with number plates is they’re not in Garda remit and are a customs/revenue area?

Comhrá

Unfortunately young people getting killed in car crashes is a sad fact of life and the type of crash where two three or four young people are in a car, coming from or going to a party or social gathering, has been a constant occurrence since young people were able to get behind the wheel.

No amount of safety campaigns, shock tv adverts or appeals from Gardai or anyone else, is going to make the slightest difference once drink, drugs, peer pressure and bravado are at play.

We don't have enough guards to have even close to enough of a presence on the roads, and even then, most of these major accidents happen on country roads, late at night where realistically patrol cars can't be omnipresent.

The lack of resources is a huge factor and we hear now that less than 5% of disqualified drivers hand in their licenses voluntarily.

Drug & drink driving is rampant more now than ever, as is the mobile phone in hand and sadly the crashes will just keep on happening. A shocking but inevitable result of where policing and enforcement is currently.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800507#Comment_121800507

That sounds like something made up by a Garda that didn't want to do their job tbh. They are covered by the same regulations as all other vehicle safety regs.

It would be impossible, but a system that fines a Garda every time they use "that's a civil matter" or blame another department when they're wrong about it would be wonderful. And possibly leave a lot of Gardai bankrupt.

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800516#Comment_121800516

Registration plate laws are under the Registration and Taxation Regulations, which are enforced by Revenue, not Gardai.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1992/si/318/made/en/print

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800516#Comment_121800516

Plenty of examples on boards.ie where people report motoring offences, and if the offender lives in a different jurisdiction, the gardai won't do anything. "You need to report that to a different garda station"

lmk123

Does anyone else think that the people that decide to Drive 30-50km below the speed limit on good roads are a major danger, leads to huge queues and people taking chances overtaking, I can never make sense of the mentality behind it, if you’re not capable of doing the limit or whatever is safe to do at the time then you shouldn’t be on that road, artics and buses can do the limit but a little polo can’t

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800538#Comment_121800538

That needs to be (urgently) fixed in that case. Preferably allowing the cars of people with "4D" plates to be crushed or torched with all their belongings inside them...

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800552#Comment_121800552

Usually I wouldn’t really care about reg plates but I agree about them grey on black plates, you genuinely can’t read the plate until its right in front of you

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800562#Comment_121800562

And its deliberately so. Why would you get them unless you intend to break the law and reduce the chances of being caught? They look like arse. As do all the "4D" ones.

SuperBowserWorld

More people.

More people driving.

On phones.

On drugs (alcohol is the worst offender).

More people in rural areas with no access to public transport.

People with all the knowledge in the world, available in their pockets, but less civilised, more ignorant and more impatient.

Dumb ass speed and car glorifying programmes like Top Gear.

Purple Mountain

It's a mentality. Arrogance. Invincibility. Selfishness.

It's going to take serious law enforcement and a serious educational campaign to begin to crack this.

Look at smoking in pubs. People said the smoking ban would never work but it caught on with enforcement and a shift towards smoking no longer being seen as sexy or cool.

Attitudes will have to shift dramatically.

Quitelife

Local fireman who attends many car crashes tells me the three main reasons in our part of rural ireland caudng crash’s are

1. No guard presence to correct people or deter people from 2 below reasons
2. Phones - they have had fatalities where the phone was been used at impact
3. Drugs driving is a huge problem with cocaine causing young people to drive wreckless with very poor judgment

Dartz

What's actually changed in the last few years though?

Something has changed. And it's not people.

Cars have theoretically only gotten safer - but in practice they've also gotten bigger, heavier and bigger and there's no extra magic grip on the road. People also be using facebook or the spotify while driving.

Spotify especially.

It's one thing to search for a radio station and another to skim through Rammstein albums so you can pedal along to Feuer Frei backfiring the whole way up the road.

Kaisr Sose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800590#Comment_121800590

How about a total lack of visible and robust roads policing ?

On a daily basis it's impossible not to see a range of motoring offences, multiple times, even on the shortest journey.

It's wrong to include lack of access to public transport as a reason for people driving dangerously or intoxicated etc.

BrianD3

There have been a number of fatal crashes on motorways this year. Single vehicle crashes, pedestrians killed while walking on motorways. These morons are probably deserving of some sort of Darwin award.

Add to that crashes last year involving vehicles being driven on public roads by children, hit and runs (scumbags) , incidents involving tractors and/or no seat belts (e.g one in cavan where a passenger in a tractor was killed) Also, the usual epidemic of single vehicle crashes on rural roads in the early hours, likely related to fatigue, intoxication, suicide or showing off.

There’s no one to stop them basically. Been driving only since Sept 2022, but I’ve been stopped twice about 6 weeks apart at checkpoints. Never seen a checkpoint otherwise.

One was for drink driving and the other tax, insurance & NCT checks. I drove plenty unaccompanied as a learner and that never was a problem either. I also am pretty certain I drove by a speed trap in baltinglass a few of weeks back. About the size of it insofar as enforcement barring speed cameras.

Incidentally at the same checkpoint a young lad ahead of me was getting ripped into for driving like a clown on a learner permit with no seatbelt. Had the car taken off him but he may well have ended up a statistic otherwise.

The Garda can do a lot to take gobshites off the road but they won’t do it from the barracks. I suppose there’s just not enough of them either. You can almost get away with murder tbh.

Kaisr Sose

Murder on roads yes, good chance of getting away with that

Princess Calla

I've said it before I think those safety ads from the late 90's early 00's need to come back....well a more updated version. I don't think they'll impact the current 18-25 yr old demographic but it will sow the seed in the 12-17 yo and hopefully change outlook.

Drink and drugs have always been about, I've never done it myself but my younger self did get into cars where I knew the driver was under the influence...I did eventually cop on but 19-21 we were lucky.

I do think mobile phones are also a major issue.... personally I'd love some sort of dampener in cars that blocked signals...it will never happen though.

I would also love to know how many people weren't wearing seatbelts.

Maybe we need to bring restrictions in ...can only drive a 1.2 for first 3 years after getting licence, or have speed restrictors fitted to cars.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800720#Comment_121800720

This is it.

If the will were there we'd have this sorted fairly quickly.

The amount of distractions in cars nowadays can be significant - phones being the key one.

Instead we focus on more laws without the ability to enforce the existing ones.

jeremyr62

I am an old fart who started using vehicles on the roads in the 1980s. In my case it was motorbikes in London. First point is I am not convinced it is getting worse. You have blips but as far as I know the number of road related fatalities shows a general trend downwards. The second is back then there definitely was a much greater chance of being stopped by the police if you were committing an offence. It was a powerful deterrent.

The idea of doing donuts on a motorway would have blown my mind.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800745#Comment_121800745

The huge change is the availability of smartphones and the addictive nature of the apps. When you cycle, from the higher head position, you see huge numbers of drivers with phones on their laps, just begging to be distracted. You drivers having video chats, drivers playing Tiktoks, drivers writing emails and WhatsApps, drivers "just listening" to the video podcasts playing on the dash. Absolutely crazy.

when we hear, as we heard this week, of some people in the car killed, while others survived with non life-threatening injuries, I often suspect that seatbelts, or lack of seat belts, or the root cause.

It's not a surprise to see the oul lads on Boards pointing the finger at younger drivers. Let's have speed limiters and monitors for ALL drivers.

NIMAN

With the increase in population, and number of cars on the roads, our stats actually aren't really increasing in line with them.

But the media attention to annual road death figures makes it sound worse than it is. Remember we used to have figures in the 600s in the 80s.

Of course any road death is very sad, but we ain't going to get rid of them.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121801193#Comment_121801193

Which of your family members are you offering up to make up this year's quota?

https://youtu.be/k2tOye9DKdQ?si=7zzhMSyC6RfAu363

NIMAN

None. Just pointing out that there is always going to be road deaths, we can't remove them all, no matter what measures are put in. Yes, we could reduce them if everyone slowed down and drove properly for the road conditions but humans will always make mistakes.

And that overall, the figures aren't increasing in line with increased cars on roads.

sbs2010

They should publicise the cause or most likely cause of each crash/death.

Awful for the people involved but if they made a big deal of it - eg say on the news exactly what happened, eg what speed, what drugs, phone use were involved. Who had seatbelt or not, etc, it would help people make the connection between all the safety advice and the gory details of dying.

Seth Brundle

It does seem like a lot of posters here are blaming younger drivers - it's not just them - it's all age groups in all vehicle types.

IMO it seems like there is a sense of absolute entitlement in some drivers and feck everyone else.

It is obviously the individual who makes the decision to break whatever road traffic law but this is enabled completely by an absence of enforcement. On top of that you have various loopholes along the judicial process making it appear almost pointless

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800542#Comment_121800542

Agree, also ppl who join motorways at 80km or less, dont get it? Your joining a motorway where cars are going 100 - 120 (or more) and you decide to pull in at 80... why? So dangerous..

The slow down rule doesnt apply everywhere :)

NIMAN

Blaming the Guards for road deaths is stretching things A LOT.

I live rurally. I know there is little chance of me being caught if I speed, drink drive or drive like a maniac. Do I do it? No, cause there's a thing called personal responsibility and not being an idiot. I enjoy life, and would prefer to live it for another while yet.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800353#Comment_121800353

The lessons tell you how to pass a test that is driven at 50km/h, with maybe a little at 60kp/h. There's nothing about driving outside urban speed limits

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058337314/increase-in-road-deaths-questions-need-to-be-asked

Speed may be part of the issue but with several of the recent fatalities some people had no injuries while others died, seat belts seem to be used a lot less.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800892#Comment_121800892

Young people don't watch TV or listen to the radio so your ads won't be seen by those it's aimed at, online most use ad-blocking.

We need better driver training not restrictions. You can get a 1l car that can go 140km/h+ , even restricting cars to 80km/h wouldn't matter as we've plenty of roads where that's reckless. 12 lessons is not enough to teach people how to drive safely and it only teaches 52% of people how to pass the test. More lessons on different roads before you can do the test and harder tests are what's needed to improve drivers, then we need to enforce our laws.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800771#Comment_121800771

I got my licence I think 26 years ago and have never been breathalysed.

[Steve]

The lack of Garda presence is the real issue above all else.

In the last 2 years of driving..

• Checkpoints: 3 (2 nct/tax, 1 MIT)
• Massive increase on red light runners. If you were quick off a green light it may end up as an incident with one of them.
• VAG cars that have all sorts of shite slapped on them breaking speed limits everywhere; modified plates, windscreen stickers blocking most of their view, sitting so low they look like a 4 year old is driving.

At least GoSafe are out perfecting the art of hiding a van though, that's about it.

kaahooters

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058337314/increase-in-road-deaths-questions-need-to-be-asked

wheres the evidance it was speed related?

in teh published report on 2023 incidents, it only mentions speed once,

https://www.rsa.ie/road-safety/statistics/road-traffic-collision-data

https://www.rsa.ie/docs/default-source/road-safety/r2---statistics/provisional-reviews/infographic-of-fatalities-1-january-to-31-december-2023.pdf?Status=Master&sfvrsn=b04931b6_5

the majority of incidents are in the west of the country, yes dublin has 15, and on weekends between midnight and 4am.

theres an incres in the amount of passnager deaths and 7 of 10 are on rural roads 80km or higher.

it dosent read like speed is a massive factor, it reads more like people are driving more carlessly in rural areas, late at nnight, on weekends, fatigue drink and drug use seem to be a much more likley indication of causes.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121801265#Comment_121801265

Just on changing attitudes; I don't recall ever having been brake tested in those 26 years till about three years ago and it's happened me I think three times now in those three years. In one of those cases the driver started swerving across lanes to prevent me from passing also.

Anecdotes are not data, I know - and it's easy to link that with covid, but there does seem to have been a shift in attitudes.

whisky_galore

Breathalysed once ever.

Stopped for tax, insurance maybe once or twice a year, some years never.

Never ever been dipped.

Driving since 1990s.

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121801283#Comment_121801283

This year alone we have had a number of single vehicle collisions where one or more occupants died. What other factor could there be if not speed?

magicbastarder

many people conflate 'inappropriate speed' with 'exceeding the speed limit', and they're not the same.

it's pretty basic physics anyway that lowering your speed will not only reduce injuries and damage in a crash, it means it'll be easier to avoid the crash in the first place. speed is a sliding scale, not a binary yes/no when it comes to how much of a factor it is.

alias no.9

Every morning and evening that I'm on the M50, there are a ridiculous number of people on their phones. Some of the can be picked out from quite a distance away...

- not keeping up with the traffic in their lane

- drifting side to side in their lane

- randomly tapping the brakes for no apparent reason

If you happen to move up beside them in the next lane and glance across, sure as anything, there they are looking down at their phone.

Traffic lights as already mentioned, it's no longer a case of a fella taking a chance on a 'ripe orange', it's 3, 4 or even 5 cars ploughing through after the lights have changed to green for another direction, and it's drivers of all ages and genders.

I couldn't honestly tell you the last time I've encountered a non covid related checkpoint, Traffic Policing appears to have been reduced to GoSafe Vans and an occasional Garda speed trap.

kaahooters

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121801319#Comment_121801319

drink, drugs, being on there phone, mechanical falure on the car, bad breaks/ tyres, not wearting seatbelt, older cars that arent as safe, incorrect limits on roads, but that leads into more inexperiance then anything.

now, as half of all accidents take place between 8pm and 8am on weekends and in the country, straight out the most likley factors drink/ drug driving, distraction, fatigue, and inexperiance.

Iodine1

Another factor is the practice of lowering the suspension on cars. It is common to see cars with the wheels leaning slightly after being lowered thus the geometry is wrong. Grand when crawling around a car park, what happens when you bottom out at speed? Unlike F1 there is no gravel to catch the car before crashing.

BrianD3

Although it doesn't seem to be the done thing anymore to show pics of cars involved in fatal crashes, I saw some footage of the the damage to the car in the recent N69 crash where two passengers died and the driver survived. Damage didn't look that bad, also the wall that they hit broke up so it's not like they hit a big tree or other "immovable" object. I'd say quite likely that some of them weren't wearing seatbelts. Will we hear anything about that or will it be buried in a coroner's report in a year's time

Will the driver who survived be prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving. How about a mandatory 10 year sentence if convicted.

When these collisions happen, the reaction if predicable. It's a terrible tragedy, they were young, lovely people, they played GAA and attended college. Local councillors talking about how awful it is (it used to be the local priest rolled out but that seems to have fallen out of favour) Counselling arranged for their classmates. Are such reactions counterproductive?

magicbastarder

one of the issues here has been that irish road deaths hit a historical low a few years ago and the 'establishment' decided it was a solved problem, and that's one reason the number of gardai assigned to RPU has plummeted (among other reasons related to overall garda numbers too!).

but also the response from mcentee six months ago to the surge was to give more money to go-safe; it's certainly not a money making racket as far as the government are concerned, as that costs the state money - but it's great for go-safe, with an unproven effect on impact on speeding. as i've opined here plenty of times, i'm totally convinced the use of go-safe vans in the manner they're used results in more speeding, not less.