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Has ignoring red lights gotten a lot worse?

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Comments

  • #512
    fullstop
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 11,961 ✭✭✭✭fullstop


    Another thread ruined by our favourite cyclist :rolleyes:


  • #513
    Shai
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 226 ✭✭Shai


    fullstop wrote: »
    Another thread ruined by our favourite cyclist :rolleyes:

    Not sure what you're on about. It's not Andrew who is trying to shift the thread towards cyclists.


  • #514
    jjpep
    Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭jjpep


    It's interesting how if you drive, cycle and walk you're a cyclist and anything you say about driving must be because you're anti motorist.


  • #515
    Seth Brundle
    Moderators, Politics Moderators, Paid Member Posts: 43,880 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle


    This is just going around in circles now with the cars vs cyclist crap.
    The issue is the lack of due care by some road users, regardless of mode of transport, when it comes to red lights. The potential for injury or death is increased from red light gambling especially by those travelling faster in heavier vehicles. The claim that someone on a bike may not cause as much damage isn't necessarily valid because they could collide with a car causing injury or death to themselves.

    This is down to many factors including heavier volumes, longer travel times, lack of proper enforcement. The main reason that some people travel through red lights, regardless of whether they are on bikes or cars us because there's next to no enforcement.

    Changing behaviour needs to be marketing driven just like the drink driving campaigns but there's no point doing that if there's no enforcement.


  • #516
    Zipppy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,053 ✭✭✭Zipppy


    Seth Brundle wrote:
    Changing behaviour needs to be marketing driven just like the drink driving campaigns but there's no point doing that if there's no enforcement.


    3 cycles of the lights in Phibsboro last nite cars broke the lights.. 2 Garda were on duty a few meters away..just looked on...
    Meanwhile today at Doyle's corner an Audi flew (and I mean flew) up the inside of 2 buses and brokes lights about 3 seconds after the red..no way he could have seen anything or be seen..no one cares it seems..least of all the Garda car that was stopped in traffic coming opposite...really don't know how there wasn't carnage..


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  • #517
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators, Paid Member Posts: 53,862 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    jjpep wrote: »
    It's interesting how if you drive, cycle and walk you're a cyclist and anything you say about driving must be because you're anti motorist.
    in a not-quite-argument i was once having with someone (who does not cycle) about cyclists, i was accused of being 'biased' because i do cycle. i had to pause for a second or two to process the enormity of that amount of - quite sincere - idiocy.
    the 'of course you would say that, you're a (insert type of road user)' concept *only* seems to apply to cyclists.


  • #518
    jjpep
    Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭jjpep


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    in a not-quite-argument i was once having with someone (who does not cycle) about cyclists, i was accused of being 'biased' because i do cycle. i had to pause for a second or two to process the enormity of that amount of - quite sincere - idiocy.
    the 'of course you would say that, you're a (insert type of road user)' concept *only* seems to apply to cyclists.

    Yep, and I'm not trying to bring this back to a cyclist Vs motorist thing nor am I saying that if one individual drives and cycles than everything that individual says on those topics is correct. It's just that weird illogic that you've observed too.

    If I criticise driver behaviour and I'm see as a driver then it's fine. I'm one of 'us'. If I'm see as a cyclist then it's not, I'm one of 'them'. And in my mind I'm both.


  • #519
    RobbieMD
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 449 ✭✭RobbieMD


    Zipppy wrote: »
    3 cycles of the lights in Phibsboro last nite cars broke the lights.. 2 Garda were on duty a few meters away..just looked on...
    Meanwhile today at Doyle's corner an Audi flew (and I mean flew) up the inside of 2 buses and brokes lights about 3 seconds after the red..no way he could have seen anything or be seen..no one cares it seems..least of all the Garda car that was stopped in traffic coming opposite...really don't know how there wasn't carnage..

    Maybe the garda driving the car is one of the huge number not qualified to drive with blue lights and sirens....


  • #520
    Duckjob
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,857 ✭✭✭Duckjob


    Seth Brundle wrote: »
    The claim that someone on a bike may not cause as much damage isn't necessarily valid because they could collide with a car causing injury or death to themselves.

    While the above is true, The bolded word is highly significant and is continually glossed over by people trying to draw equivalence between people in cars breaking rules and people on bikes breaking rules.

    A cyclist going through a red light, while for sure it may irritate, is largely risking their own safety more so than others. A car driver going through a red light is literally gambling not only the safety, but the very lives of others.

    In 25+ yrs of driving, I've never ever ever sat in my car watching a cyclist go through a red and thought that because of them I may not make it back to my family that evening. I can't say the same in reverse about last 5 yrs of cycling.


  • #521
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,888 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Seth Brundle wrote: »
    The claim that someone on a bike may not cause as much damage isn't necessarily valid because they could collide with a car causing injury or death to themselves.

    Does that happen often?


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  • #522
    Seth Brundle
    Moderators, Politics Moderators, Paid Member Posts: 43,880 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle


    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    Does that happen often?
    Are those stats released?


  • #523
    Zipppy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,053 ✭✭✭Zipppy


    Duckjob wrote:
    A cyclist going through a red light, while for sure it may irritate, is largely risking their own safety more so than others. A car driver going through a red light is literally gambling not only the safety, but the very lives of others.


    So cyclists running red lights is ok?..its just an irritant ?
    Surely motorists and cyclists are equally in the wrong.. both are breaking the rules of the road. one may pose more of a danger but both are wrong and should be clamped down on with equal force..which brings us back to this thread..we should be discussing how we can step both modes breaking lights and not nit pick about who is worst..


  • #524
    jjpep
    Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭jjpep


    Zipppy wrote: »
    So cyclists running red lights is ok?..its just an irritant ?
    Surely motorists and cyclists are equally in the wrong.. both are breaking the rules of the road. one may pose more of a danger but both are wrong and should be clamped down on with equal force..which brings us back to this thread..we should be discussing how we can step both modes breaking lights and not nit pick about who is worst..

    This has already been gone over at least once in this thread.


  • #525
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,888 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Seth Brundle wrote: »
    Are those stats released?


    You tell me. You're flagging up the problem so I'd have hoped that you had a good understanding of what's behind it.



    I'm fairly confident that no cyclist has been killed in Ireland as a result of breaking a red light in living memory. I've never heard of any case of a cyclist being seriously injured as a result of breaking a red light. Given the enthusiasm of much of the media to join in a round of cyclist-bashing, I'd be fairly confident that this hasn't happened in living memory.


    RSA track stats on people killed and seriously injured, so I'm fairly confident that they would have recognised any trend in this area.

    Zipppy wrote: »
    So cyclists running red lights is ok?..its just an irritant ?
    Surely motorists and cyclists are equally in the wrong.. both are breaking the rules of the road. one may pose more of a danger but both are wrong and should be clamped down on with equal force..which brings us back to this thread..we should be discussing how we can step both modes breaking lights and not nit pick about who is worst..


    Why would you expect both to be clamped down with equal force? Do you expect the authorities to 'clamp down on equal force' on people who by more than their daily allowance of paracetamol and people who are injecting heroin on the streets? I'd expect the Gardai to focus on addressing danger, death and injury in their clampdown. They would therefore focus on the motorists that kill 2 or 3 people each week and maim many more.

    Would you be in favour of a Garda clampdown on the 60-82% of motorists that break speed limits?


  • #526
    Duckjob
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,857 ✭✭✭Duckjob


    Zipppy wrote: »
    So cyclists running red lights is ok?..its just an irritant ?
    Surely motorists and cyclists are equally in the wrong.. both are breaking the rules of the road. one may pose more of a danger but both are wrong and should be clamped down on with equal force..which brings us back to this thread..we should be discussing how we can step both modes breaking lights and not nit pick about who is worst..


    Are you Cathy Newman by any chance ? Show me where I said running red lights is "ok" ?

    You can draw all the moral equivalences you want between cars and bikes breaking lights.

    We can discuss until the cow come home whether a cyclist breaking a red is as morally wrong as a car breaking a red. I would argue the moral wrong of a motorist breaking a red is much greater because, as I am other posters have pointed out the safety implications to *others* are on an entirely different scale. That doesn't mean I think cyclists going through red is ok.

    At the end of the day though, if you want to address road safety effectively, then unless you're clinging to some sort of petty anti- mentality against another group of road users, then perceived morality doesnt really have any place in the discussion. Physics does.


  • #527
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,888 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Weepsie wrote: »
    You can add to to that the 240k drivers with some sort of driving offence against them at present.
    And the 100k-150k uninsured vehicles on our road, but yeah, let's pull resource off reducing the death toll on the roads to clamp down on cyclists.


  • #528
    Shai
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 226 ✭✭Shai


    Duckjob wrote: »
    At the end of the day though, if you want to address road safety effectively, then unless you're clinging to some sort of petty anti- mentality against another group of road users, then perceived morality doesnt really have any place in the discussion. Physics does.

    I can't speak for everyone, but if it were possible for cars to be made of some magical new material that caused them to do only as much damage as a bike could in case of a collision, I personally would be a whole lot less worried about cars jumping red lights.


  • #529
    Duckjob
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,857 ✭✭✭Duckjob


    Shai wrote: »
    I can't speak for everyone, but if it were possible for cars to be made of some magical new material that caused them to do only as much damage as a bike could in case of a collision, I personally would be a whole lot less worried about cars jumping red lights.

    Would be nice.

    While car makers have gone to the ends of the earth to increase the safety (or at least the perceived safety) of those inside their vehicles, the sad reality is that the safety of anyone outside the vehicle Is of secondary importance to the vanity of the car owner. The failure to ban bull bars from our urban spaces would be a prime example of this. But that's another thread.


  • #530
    Dravokivich
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,384 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dravokivich


    Shai wrote: »
    I can't speak for everyone, but if it were possible for cars to be made of some magical new material that caused them to do only as much damage as a bike could in case of a collision, I personally would be a whole lot less worried about cars jumping red lights.

    Cyclists can be fatal to pedestrians too.


  • #531
    jjpep
    Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭jjpep


    Dravokivich wrote: »
    Cyclists can be fatal to pedestrians too.

    Can you imagine the uproar if 50 or 60 pedistrians were killed each year by cyclist's?


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  • #532
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,888 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Dravokivich wrote: »
    Cyclists can be fatal to pedestrians too.

    They can be - but that is a very, very rare event. In Ireland, it is more than 15 years since a cyclist killed a pedestrian. In that time, motorists have killed more than 3,500 people here.

    In the UK, cyclists kill 1 or 2 people each year. Motorists kill 4 or 5 people each day.

    That will give you some idea of the real source of danger on the roads.


  • #533
    Charles Babbage
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,708 ✭✭✭Charles Babbage


    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    They can be - but that is a very, very rare event. In Ireland, it is more than 15 years since a cyclist killed a pedestrian. In that time, motorists have killed more than 3,500 people here.

    In the UK, cyclists kill 1 or 2 people each year. Motorists kill 4 or 5 people each day.

    That will give you some idea of the real source of danger on the roads.


    Is only death of interest here? Are the injuries and intimidation caused not also of public interest?


  • #534
    Shai
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 226 ✭✭Shai


    Charles Babbage wrote: »
    Is only death of interest here? Are the injuries and intimidation caused not also of public interest?

    I'm not gonna comment on injuries here, as I don't have any numbers handy, but I want to ask you what exactly you mean by intimidation. When people talk about cyclists intimidating others, I often have the impression that they're really talking about teenagers on bikes trying to act tough, racing on pedestrian lanes and generally just being a pest to pedestrians. Am I misreading this?


  • #535
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,888 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Charles Babbage wrote: »
    Is only death of interest here? Are the injuries and intimidation caused not also of public interest?
    I addressed injuries in this recent post.


    I'm not sure what you mean by intimidation, tbh.


  • #536
    Dravokivich
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,384 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dravokivich


    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    I addressed injuries in this recent post.


    I'm not sure what you mean by intimidation, tbh.

    People behind you speeding up as the light goes to amber.


  • #537
    Corruptedmorals
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,195 ✭✭✭Corruptedmorals


    It has definitely gotten worse. Cars and cyclists breaking green pedestrian lights is especially frustrating at crossings where the pedestrian time is too short for your average person to cross without it going amber. It wrecks the sequences to have the pedestrians stop or pull back for cars to bulldoze through and then be in danger then crossing on red. The worst one I encounter is lower Leeson Street lights a bit up from the Stephen's green junction..plenty cars and cyclists breaking a very short pedestrian sequence...and a huge amount of the pedestrians crossing are schoolchildren.


  • #538
    CramCycle
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 26,158 Mod ✭✭✭✭CramCycle


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    it's fairly simple; gardai, when they police a junction, should pull in and fine light breakers, be they motorists or cyclists. that is all.
    the issue is that they don't police junctions.
    True, I see cars breaking lights in front of Gardai all the time, a Garda clearing a bus lane on the N11 a few weeks ago didn't bother issuing fines to the 45 cars, just stood there and waved them out, even though some were paying so little attention, they did not even see him.
    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    I've never heard of any case of a cyclist being seriously injured as a result of breaking a red light. Given the enthusiasm of much of the media to join in a round of cyclist-bashing, I'd be fairly confident that this hasn't happened in living memory.
    Only one I have ever heard of at O'Connell bridge, and he was not seriously injured, only reason it made the news is that he claimed the car ran the red but an overwhelming amount of evidence showed him to be an arm chancing scumbag and the judge ruled against him
    Dravokivich wrote: »
    Cyclists can be fatal to pedestrians too.
    Once since the turn of the century. That's it, once. Cyclist completely at fault, accepted blame, and had life destroyed. I worked just up the road at the time. It was awful, one way street and the courier was going against traffic, pedestrian stepped off the pavement.


  • #539
    Charles Babbage
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,708 ✭✭✭Charles Babbage


    Shai wrote: »
    I'm not gonna comment on injuries here, as I don't have any numbers handy, but I want to ask you what exactly you mean by intimidation. When people talk about cyclists intimidating others, I often have the impression that they're really talking about teenagers on bikes trying to act tough, racing on pedestrian lanes and generally just being a pest to pedestrians. Am I misreading this?


    If you are a pedestrian crossing on a green light at a crossing and cars and cyclists are not stopping then that is intimidating. If you are pedestrian on a footpath and a cyclists whizzes past you with cm that is intimidating. The whole point of a footpath is that you should not have to look out for traffic.


  • #540
    pmcc1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71 ✭✭pmcc1


    Let’s say I was interested in helping put manners on red-light runners on my local crossroads.
    And I am. (Doyle’s Corner – getting really dangerous)
    If I were to record “evidence packs” - High quality video clips, indexed in spreadsheet - likely I would be wasting my time providing same to the police.
    However, if the offender’s insurer were identifiable, they would perhaps be more interested in making life more uncomfortable for serial red-light runners.
    The UK have a look-up service to find an insurer from a license number.
    Wonder would the Motor Insurer’s Bureau of Ireland set up similar, or endorse such a citizen-fed scheme?


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  • #541
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,888 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Charles Babbage wrote: »
    The whole point of a footpath is that you should not have to look out for traffic.

    You're dead right

    https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/video-cork-gardai-probing-dangerous-driving-on-busy-city-footpath-827339.html

    Take a look at these search results: https://twitter.com/search?q=makewayday&s=09


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