Increase in road deaths - questions need to be asked

They would if councils actually put accessed speed limits on country roads. It’s really one of the most stupid things when it comes to the roads.

In all honesty, who'd be bothered reading that? What purpose would it serve? I don't think anyone who uses a phone while driving would give a hoot about their name being published in a list along with hundreds of other names. You'd want to be fairly hard-up for reading material to be trawling through such a list.

An employer might especially if you are in a company van/car.

Parents might especially if you are using their car.

Plus if you live in a small town it only takes one gossipy neighbour to read it for the whole town to know.

It’s an idea worth exploring, speeding and mobile phones usage could really shame people into thinking twice.

Dismissing a legitimate argument surrounding an absolutely fundamental road safety statistic as "flat earth theory" is ridiculous. It is absolutely NOT about A) wording, or that B) speeding isn't an issue (of course it is), it is that the RSA are unable to reliably assign causation to actually breaking the limit, so they conflate that with "inappropriate speed" in their press releases, because they have done NOTHING to teach people how to drive a car at any reasonable speed.

Also, the Free Speed Survey was designed from the outset to achieve the desired result so as to prop up the RSA's laser focus on speed, over and above their own training failures. Many unpublished locations, early morning, no traffic, straight roads, no junctions, no hills, no bad weather. Utterly unbelievable selection bias going on there.

By definition, that methodology is not reflective of how people are killed - there generally needs to be other traffic present for a 2 car collision, or a hill/bend/junction for speeding to be a causation factor in a single vehicle collision - all of which are absent in the Free Speed Survey

Again (and I can't believe I have to say it, but I'll be called a flat earther if I don't spell it out) I'm not saying that speed isn't an issue, but the RSA are using somewhat irrelevant statistics on speeding to justify their evidently ineffective approach in reducing road deaths, all the while throwing so much money at a private company that the speed camera programme actually loses money.

Put that money into A) network of fixed point-to-point cameras which would eliminate speeding altogether on key N-routes and B) training for all drivers on car-control on rural roads.

I'm not entirely sure why you need the RSA to be the sole organisation to tell you unequivocally that inappropriate speed is a factor in accidents. Physics generally works the same everywhere.

If your point is that RSA is bad. There are less verbose ways of making that point.

https://www.mayonews.ie/news/home/1365948/opinion-is-the-rsa-fit-for-purpose.html

So this was at prototype stage twelve years ago. Is it in production now? Does it actually work?

More garda presence and increased detection is critical, we all witness poor driving every day in our towns and cities and very little chance of it being detected. I know of a neighbour that drives as an unaccompanied learner to work each day- she doesn't display L plates, why would she? Lots of modified cars being driven by young lads- do they disclose these mods to their insurers, probably not. Let's enforce the rules we already have and stop worrying about offending people.

Does nobody do the test in the countryside?

I think it would be a brilliant filter to find those that thought it fine to ignore rules they considered "stupid".

Were I to work for a company doing it, I would applaud the HR department.

What's wrong with people, there was a time when we had a phone in the village with a button "A" and button "B" on it, work got done and contractors out of town communicated fine with arguably less errors due to misunderstandings than today. Before mobiles were accepted as a risk, a site with around five percent of contractors on the phone at any one time would not be exceptional.

Unless I plan to contact someone during the day my mobiles stay home and both mobiles are paired to my car too.

Would increasing the driving age to 21 for vehicles 18 for tractors help?

Anyone with a conviction for drug or drink driving, a 5 to 10 years driving ban

I wonder if over packed vehicles and no seat belts are also factors with speed and intoxication

Or would it just mean that drivers involved in collisions due to inexperience were just a few years older. One would need to compare road traffic collision rates for similarly inexperienced drivers in different age ranges to how much a difference it might make.

One would also have to consider if the effect on young drivers who need independent transport to access work and/or education would be proportionate.