Increase in road deaths - RTE tonight at 9:35pm

Lot of accidents on secondary roads in rural ireland where garda stations were closed or downgraded so there has been a gradual increase in not adhering to the law knowing theres no guards to catch you.

Local Fire Brigade cite Phones & Drugs as the two most common factors along with zero garda presence

Absolutely ridiculous 'solution'. It would be comical if there weren't a constant stream of deaths involved.

Bang of let's do everything but spend money on this.

Here is what I would do...

For each station, and officer on duty, I would aggregate all the 30mins together and place X no. of Gardaí on Roads Duty for the total no. of all those 30min.

So if 20 (random number) Garda on duty, that's 10hrs of RP for one officer.

That cuts out all the silly wasted time of multiple officers logging 30min RP on Pulse /other IT system. Everyone knows where they should be for the totality of their shift. The knee jerk comment of the Commissioner (30min per Garda/shift is also achieved, but in a more effective/efficient manner.

Oh, and implement one officer per car for dedicated Road Traffic duty. Two per car is just silly.

Come on, dont nit pic.

Its just a number, a generalisation ...could be 3, could be 50 depending on the station and shift. In most stations it still going to be better than each officer logging an individual 30min.

The optics as you referred to above would be much better too

Re: last paragraph.

Lack of guards isn't causing road crashes.

Phones, speeding, bad driving, drink and drugs maybe. But Lack of guards isn't. I hate this Lack of responsibility. It's the drivers causing crashes.

Slow down folks, stop using a phone when you're driving a 1 ton lump of metal at 100km/h. Don't drink and drive.

But the guards are an easy target.

Appreciate that, but it's not the Guards crashing. Adults need to have a bit of responsibility.

In all the debates on radio and TV I hear, the roads, the guards are so often the reason for the deaths. They aren't. The elephant in the room is so often ignored for fear of offending.

If I drive today under the influence, or on my phone, or too fast and crash and due, its on me, not the local guards, or the road. It was MY fault.

But lots of grown ass adults DON'T have a sense of their own responsibility.

Everything is "someone else's" fault, not mine. Oh no, not me, I'm perfect.

Have a few pints on board? Ah shur tis grand. I'll just get that call. Ah shur tis grand.

Garda presence is one required strand of enforcement, but the trouble is that needing them to do everything stretches their resources too thin. Speeding, red light jumping, even phone use can be easily dealt with now via technology. Visible garda presence on our streets and roads should be the final layer on top of a fully automated system.

The problem with implementing any of the above isnt a technical problem, its a political one. For some reason we pay far too much heed to people shouting nonsense about personal freedom and nanny states, when they just want to continue misbehaving. Incidently the ones who shout the loudest about nanny states are the very ones whose bad behavior needs to be caught and who we need to boot off our roads to make them safer.

It sure doesn't. But it makes a diff when u have 400bhp available at your disposal, temptation is real. You keep selling fast cars but expect people to drive slowly. You gotta let people scratch that itch somehow. Many roads with 80-100 limits are not up for those speeds, often used by farming equipment and cyclists, yet you have 120 on motorways that could easily and safely take 150 if not bit faster. Especially those that are not as busy and certainly during off peak hours. Having people do a mandatory cycling would teach them how it feels being passed by a bus or truck or fast moving car and maybe they would take that into consideration while driving. I don't know how much does it cost to police the roads, maybe less than putting avg speed cameras everywhere - which would solve the problem along with fines based on income and taking away licence for repeating offenders.

What you want is to have a choice to behave safely when it suits, but when that choice is being removed then that’s not the solution.

Some drivers are loosing the run of themselves.

Last week when there was a Womens Rugby Ball Game on in Cork - a driver 'undertook' me at the roundabout but then proceeded to drive through a solid red light.

After that the driver then proceeded to undertake another car that was just waiting in traffic.

That driver made a distance leap of 2 cars ahead of me when I caught up to him doing the speed limit - so his/her dangerous driving which could have resulted in 2 serious accidents was due to their hurry to get to a ball game - words just fail me.

As for driving with phones etc. - surely ALL cars now have Bluetooth - no excuses

Are they still providing maps for the gosafe van locations

Madness if they are

Reducing speed limits has nothing to do with road safety?

For example ,In the urban areas where they are reducing the limits , that is related to road safety

Pedestrians are less likely to be seriously injured if the car is travelling slower when it hits a pedestrian

Same principle applies to general car crashes

But at the same time they need to be doing the simple stuff like punishing mobile phone users en masse and not advertising location of speed vans

Anything that distracts is bad

Currently there isn’t an age limit on the use of escooters, currently you have numerous little clowns using them at dangerously high speeds on pathways in close proximity to people of all ages and physical / health abilities and limitations …. So a physical limit on their speed is appropriate. I witness this weekly one is with a see you next Tuesday living beside me. They are now for this reason proposing an age limit of 16.

A car can go over a motorway speed limit as not all motorways have the same speed limit, they vary from country to country. Plus you cannot or should not limit the speed of a vehicle, in certain circumstances it’s unsafe, ie. if you needed an increase in speed to avert danger on the road. A drunk or impaired driver it may be more prudent to intentionally increase your speed to 140/150 in order to complete an overtake and get out of dodge as opposed to just sitting behind and hoping you can break or manoeuvre out of his carnage should he collide, lose control or do whatever.

Incidentally I’ve driven a company vehicle with a limiter… not purchased for safety, purchased to avail of wholesale cheaper insurance, the management were honest about it….not one single positive to say about that experience… cruising on a busy motorway, losing power, speed, revs…. Not a nice situation and should I have gotten into trouble I had no way to get my ass out of dodge… No way to override it…. The accelerator clicks and recesses into the floor as you lose everything and only when you relax your foot off it and gear down can you get the power back…..No opportunity if anything goes wrong to capture quickly speed that might save you.

I’m not a speeder… I’ve never received a penalty point or even been pulled by the Gardai so what I’m saying is genuinely from someone who values road safety and the lives of each road user….

And I’m still completely anti limiter and completely more enforcement of the road traffic act and appropriate penalties for those in contravention of it. Limiters ? No, not from my adverse experience.

More enforcement and tougher penalties ? YES !