Discussion on driving standards in Ireland

TestTransmission · 03-02-2008 03:53AM #1

If we had decent roads with overtaking lanes, every say 10km that might help..
They have it in oz and it works like a charm.

invincibleirish · 03-02-2008 05:58AM

jackncoke wrote: »

If we had decent roads with overtaking lanes, every say 10km that might help..
They have it in oz and it works like a charm.

In fairness i think everyone agrees with this but the thread is more about the posters drunken xenophobia then anything transport related! he was so angry he posted twice,he didnt pull tonight anyway thats for sure!:p

MarkR · 03-02-2008 09:40AM

I heard on the radio rairly recently that foriegn people were in 12% of accidents, while they made up roughly 10% of the population. Or something to that effect.

Unless you saw the accident you are just jumping to conclusions. I've seen plenty of dangerous overtaking by people, and I doubt they were all polish.

mikemac · 03-02-2008 10:39AM

Beechman wrote: »

There needs to be more discussion in public about the driving standards especially the rise in drink-drive arrests . Its a pity that nationalitys are not released when figures are released for this as well as figures for accidents

I think there should be a detailed analysis of fatal accidents put in a national newspaper, possibly after the coroners report.
That way people can see exactly went wrong.

Examples.
5 lads in Monaghan were killed played chicken and the priest called it a tradegy. I call it suicide.

A lady drove her car into a fire engine on the N7 and her sister went on the national radio stations and blamed the NRA for not having displays with variable speed limits. Fog or no fog, a fire engine with lights flashing on duty is hard to miss

A car of young people coming home from Oxygen music festival cross onto the wrong side of the road and are killed by a lorry. More than likely the driver was exhausted but the parents call for Gay Byrne to resign.

A man in Donegal is getting huge media coverage as his daughter drove off a road in Donegal and killed herself. He blames Donegal Co. Council 100% and not his saint of a daughter.

I got knocked off my moped on Friday as someone drove into me but it wasn't her fault, the sun blinded her :mad:

Stroll over to the Learning to Drive forum. Some people who fail blame the grumpy **** of a tester who didn't like the look of them and failed them.

Noone takes responsibility for anything

MrVostro · 03-02-2008 11:01AM

its getting so bad we will have to ban over-taking.

What happened to this announcement that was made over a year ago for putting barriers down the middle of N routes and having alternate stretches of 2 miles for overtaking.?

invincibleirish · 03-02-2008 11:01AM

micmclo wrote: »

I think there should be a detailed analysis of fatal accidents put in a national newspaper, possibly after the coroners report.
That way people can see exactly went wrong.

Examples.
5 lads in Monaghan were killed played chicken and the priest called it a tradegy. I call it suicide.

A lady drove her car into a fire engine on the N7 and her sister went on the national radio stations and blamed the NRA for not having displays with variable speed limits. Fog or no fog, a fire engine with lights flashing on duty is hard to miss

A car of young people coming home from Oxygen music festival cross onto the wrong side of the road and are killed by a lorry. More than likely the driver was exhausted but the parents call for Gay Byrne to resign.

A man in Donegal is getting huge media coverage as his daughter drove off a road in Donegal and killed herself. He blames Donegal Co. Council 100% and not his saint of a daughter.

I got knocked off my moped on Friday as someone drove into me but it wasn't her fault, the sun blinded her :mad:

Stroll over to the Learning to Drive forum. Some people who fail blame the grumpy **** of a tester who didn't like the look of them and failed them.

Noone takes responsibility for anything

+1

fallout_girl · 03-02-2008 11:22AM

invincibleirish wrote: »

+1

+2

this is ridiculous. never have i seen more dangerous driving than in ireland (especially around dublin). people ignoring red lights, not understanding the principle of green arrows at traffic lights and the tendency to create 4 lanes where there's only space for 2. not even to mention tailgating/dangerous overaking/changing lanes without checking the blind spot...

i am not polish but one of these "bloody foreigners" (albeit from the "old European" countries) and never thought the irish standard of driving is particularly high or comparable to the likes of Germany, the Netherlands or any of the Scandinavian countries.
Wondering now if this means in conclusion that irish drivers should not be allowed on mainland europe as their statistics seem to show that they're not particularly good drivers...

microgirl · 03-02-2008 12:30PM

dolanbaker wrote: »

ISTR reading somewhere that in poland overtaking vehicles have right of way, don't know if that's true, but it would explain the crash!

Akshully - I think you're right. I read a book "Watching the English", written by social anthropologist Kate Fox, and in the kind of prologue bit she was talking about basically how her observation skills as a social anthropologist stand her in very good stead.

She and her other half were driving in a Central European country, which I'm 99.9% positive was Poland, and as they were driving a right-hand-drive care, he couldn't see to overtake, so had her in the passenger seat on look out.

After being in the country for about half an hour, he was wanting to overtake and she said yeah, it's grand. So he pulls out to come face to face with a car heading his way. He freaked out.

The reason she'd said it was ok was because in that half-hour of observation she'd noticed that when a car is overtaking, cars in the two official lanes pull in to the side a little to create a third, unofficial "overtaking" lane.

So that would very definitely explain a lot of the overtaking crashes involving Central and Eastern Europeans in this country.

As for everything else, I think there should be very strict controls on bringing cars in - checks at entry points and the like - and that you shouldn't be allowed drive on a European licence. There should be a "transfer licence" or something, that you can automatically get by having a full European licence, but *only* after (say) a day's theoretical instruction, and passingthe Theory Test. They wouldn't necessarily need driving lessons and to pass the practical, as they can drive, but the Rules of the Road are feasibly very different here. The example given by the poster whose wife and child nearly got killed on the zebra crossing - wherever the driver was from probably doesn't have zebra crossings, and she didn't know what they were for.

is_that_so · 03-02-2008 12:58PM

fallout_girl wrote: »

+3

It's the lack of enforcement that bothers me most of all. Just heard the local boyracers yet again rev up going past my house. Much of the discussion on this is intemperate. "Safe" but speeding drivers call people PC for complaining about speeding and anyone who loses anyone or has a bleeding heart story just shows up on Whineline.
A tragedy from what I have read but no accident - it was avoidable. IMO it also highlights the need for careless driving to be classified as a form of manslaughter.

The_Conductor · 03-02-2008 01:01PM

Clytus wrote:

I can see your point...BUT would it also count for drivers from the UK?
Given that most of the EU nations have equal standing within the EU such an idea could create alot of problems.

Not necessarily- if you are resident in the UK for longer than 1 year, in Portugal for longer than 6 months (and varying terms in other EU countries) you are not allowed to drive on their roads on a non-national licence. In London a NI licence isn't even allowable (I had to send off for the picture card).

There are different rules governing road-worthiness, or in the case of commercial vehicles, allowable loads etc- all over Europe. When you pass the border of one country into another country- you have to follow the laws of that new country.

JohnMc1 · 03-02-2008 01:17PM

BrandonBlock wrote: »

I know everyone is laughing and calling the OP ignorant, etc but I actually believe he has a point (although he IS going the wrong way about making it, I'll admit that). But there are a higher proportion of Polish/EE people involved in FATAL car accidents in this country, compared to the number of them here relative to Irish people.

Now I have no way to prove this unless I trawl through the last 5 years of news websites gathering names/nationalities because unfortunately the RSA don't publish the nationalities of people who die in their yearly collision report - it only contains statistics per county, time of day, road surface, weather, etc.

So basically my point is there are roughly 60000~ Polish here, compared to 4 million~ Irish. I follow road deaths on the news closely and it appears to me there are definitely a disproportionate amount of Polish killed on our roads. It's probably down to a number of factors:

- Adapting to Irish roads different to their own?
- Adapting to different speed limits/lighting/weather than they're used to?
- Driving a feckin left-hand drive car on Irish roads (should be illegal imo)
- Types of cars they import (usually high-power audis, bmws)
- Lack of proper driver education in Poland?
- Most of the Polish here being in the male 18-30 age group (most vulnerable on our roads)

I can see the op's point, but he's just coming across very aggresive/racist or something trying to make it.

Agreed. Every EU member should be made to through the learner's permit, lessons, driving test, etc. The only EU members I can see being exempt are the British becasue their driving system is virtually the same as ours.

Left hand cars should not be allowed here. They are overtaking numerous cars and trucks and they can't see oncoming traffic until they are in the opposite lane and it could be too late by then.

There is also the fact that they don't pay Irish tax for them and they don't have local insurance which means they don't have any. So God Bless You if you are in an accident with them.

The Gov't can't be bothered stopping it [Bertie is too busy padding his wallet to make himself useful] and their scared of the EEs here crying discrimination. The Irish people are going to have to grow a spine and demand that these cars are taken off the roads and that they go through the same process as anyone else.

Alun · 03-02-2008 01:17PM

smccarrick wrote: »

Not necessarily- if you are resident in the UK for longer than 1 year, in Portugal for longer than 6 months (and varying terms in other EU countries) you are not allowed to drive on their roads on a non-national licence. In London a NI licence isn't even allowable (I had to send off for the picture card).

Not true. An EU licence is valid in any other EU country until it expires, as has been pointed out many, many times here before. The laws in the UK are the same as any other EU country in that regard. There were laws like this a good number of years ago, but that's all become standardised across the EU.

astrofool · 03-02-2008 01:25PM

The Irish are probably the worst drivers in Europe, our learning to drive system and the test itself are out of date and totally irrelevant to the realities on the road today. If anything, we should take ourselves off the road and let the foreigners do all the driving, I'm sure the accident statistics would plummet

Beechman · 03-02-2008 01:44PM

astrofool wrote: »

The Irish are probably the worst drivers in Europe, our learning to drive system and the test itself are out of date and totally irrelevant to the realities on the road today. If anything, we should take ourselves off the road and let the foreigners do all the driving, I'm sure the accident statistics would plummet

Astrofool , you are talking through your a**e ! look at all the posts before. As I said earlier my family were nearly wiped out because visitors don't understand and obey the rules of the road. The accidents yesterday that have been highlighted in this thread are not the first involving other nationalities staying in the country, and will not be the last!

Yes there are bad irish drivers but all we are hearing in the news is about eastern European drivers either getting killed or causeing the death of their fellow countrymen or others.

seamus · 03-02-2008 01:48PM

astrofool wrote: »

The Irish are probably the worst drivers in Europe

Complete and utter twaddle. You've been reading the rags too often.

The Irish have a safety record just marginally worse than the EU average. We are about as middle of the road as you can get in terms of road safety. TMore than half of the EU have a worse safety record than we do.

Without any support of the original assertion, lithuania, latvia and poland are in the worst five countries of the EU in terms of road safety. So there's certainly a higher risk associated with drivers from these countries, but clearly to say that they are the cause of all accidents is just pure idiocy.

Alun · 03-02-2008 01:58PM

seamus wrote: »

Complete and utter twaddle. You've been reading the rags too often.

The Irish have a safety record just marginally worse than the EU average. We are about as middle of the road as you can get in terms of road safety. TMore than half of the EU have a worse safety record than we do.

I don't care what the statistics say. I've lived in 3 different EU countries, and driven extensively in many of them (admittedly not much in EE) for over 20 years before moving here, and with the possible exception of Portugal, I can safely say the overall standard of driving here is worse than any of them. Many times, by some miracle, this appalling driving somehow doesn't result in a significant accident, christ knows how. I'm sure most people who've spent any significant amount of time driving abroad (not just an odd week on holiday) will agree.

seamus · 03-02-2008 02:07PM

Alun wrote: »

I don't care what the statistics say. I've lived in 3 different EU countries, and driven extensively in many of them (admittedly not much in EE) for over 20 years before moving here, and with the possible exception of Portugal, I can safely say the overall standard of driving here is worse than any of them. Many times, by some miracle, this appalling driving somehow doesn't result in a significant accident, christ knows how. I'm sure most people who've spent any significant amount of time driving abroad (not just an odd week on holiday) will agree.

Depends then I guess on what you class as "bad driving". Considering that the bulk of our fatal accidents can be attributed to a handful of factors - drink driving, poor overtaking and in the case of single-vehicle accidents, inappropriate speed, then if you look at these factors in say Poland, clearly drink-driving is going to be a much bigger issue and kill more people without any kind of reflection on the standard of driving otherwise.

That is, the Irish have an Irish "ah shure it'll be grand" attitude to driving. People take small liberties, such as u-turning on a white line, because it's seen as something minor. More importantly, this kind of driving is tolerated by the rest of the population. How many times have you seen a queue jumper be let back in by someone? If other drivers let people away with their "cheeky" driving, then people will continue doing it.
I wouldn't call this bad driving, necessarily. I can see how if you'd spent many years not driving here, Irish drivers would appear headless and careless. Inconsiderate, perhaps but rarely all that careless IMO.

microgirl · 03-02-2008 02:08PM

Alun wrote: »

I don't care what the statistics say. I've lived in 3 different EU countries, and driven extensively in many of them (admittedly not much in EE) for over 20 years before moving here, and with the possible exception of Portugal, I can safely say the overall standard of driving here is worse than any of them. Many times, by some miracle, this appalling driving somehow doesn't result in a significant accident, christ knows how. I'm sure most people who've spent any significant amount of time driving abroad (not just an odd week on holiday) will agree.

Well if your driving experience is in the likes of France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Holland etc then yes, they are largely safer drivers than us.

However, if your experience was in Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal or the Central and Eastern European countries then your story might be very different.

Stop comparing apples and oranges; it makes you look silly.

daedalus2097 · 03-02-2008 02:14PM

I agree with Alun. While I haven't driven much in Eastern Europe, from spending a lot of time driving in Germany and France for work, I always have a sinking feeling when I start driving back here. All the discipline and observation goes out the window, indicators and mirrors are forgotten about. I'll admit that a lot of drivers in France and the UK tend to jump into tighter gaps between cars and things like that, at least they know what they're doing, and they know there's a gap there, rather than pulling out without checking a gap exists at all. I'm surprised there aren't a whole lot more accidents in Ireland which would allow our midling safety record reflect the actual standard of driving... Maybe we're all just so used to the rubbish driving that we've developed an instinct for it, and this avoid many many incidents with a mere "near miss."

faceman · 03-02-2008 02:17PM

astrofool wrote: »

The Irish are probably the worst drivers in Europe, our learning to drive system and the test itself are out of date and totally irrelevant to the realities on the road today. If anything, we should take ourselves off the road and let the foreigners do all the driving, I'm sure the accident statistics would plummet

well, not the worst in europe, but not the best either.

Calina · 03-02-2008 02:45PM

This has been split off from another thread regarding a fatal accident.

1) other thread will be deleted
2) OP of other thread has been banned.
3) I feel there is some point in discussing driving standards in Ireland which is why I have split off the discussion.

given the atmosphere in the thread this discussion originated in, I will be watching this closely and as an advance warning, any post which I consider to be racist or xenophobic will earn the poster an automatic three month ban from Commuting and Transport. Other charter breaking posts will earn sanctions ranging from infractions to bans.

Niall1234 · 03-02-2008 03:05PM

microgirl, seamus is largely right in what he is saying.

We are midtable in the EU crash statistics.

Of course, there are a number of factors guarunteeing why we will never be top.

1. Crash statistics are done by crashes or deaths per population. We have the highest rate of car ownership in Europe. If these statistics were done on a crashes per driver or crashes per no of cars, our statistics would look a lot more favourable compared to the rest of Europe.

2. We have the highest percentage of rural population compared to urban population in Europe. This means that more of our journeys are done on rural roads compared to other EU countries. Just look at UK. Most journeys there are through busy cities were deaths rarely happen. Here fo the majoirty of the time, we are driving on dangerous back roads. This is an inherint risk associated with Ireland which there is no way to fix.

For the foremost, don't believe what the rags are saying. Ireland is not that overly dangerous to drive in. Yes, our record at REDUCING deaths isn't great, but our record overall is definately not bad.

In fact, the statistics show that 2007 was the 2nd safest year ever to drive in Ireland with the 2nd lowest amount of deaths. Only 2003 and a year back in the 60's was safer. Some Irish people due to the media are under the impression that twice as many are dying now as of 10 years ago. In fact, per population or per no of cars on the road, 2007 was by far the safest year EVER. In fact, road deaths have been cut in HALF since the 70's and 80's (can't remember exact year)

I'd personally like to see a sensible discussion in public regarding road death statistics, yet in my opinion, a lot of the Irish media are only trying to baffel the irish public into thinking we are maniacs on the road by twisting statistics into something they are not.

Calina · 03-02-2008 04:05PM

Actually, all of this would be academic if prevailing laws were applied more rigorously and on-the-spot fines were issued. Doesn't matter where you're from or what reg you have then.

But that would involve setting up and staffing correctly a decent traffic corps which of course is politically difficult because we don't apparently want to pay for any more staff in the public service.

(this was in response to a post that's since been deleted. Argghhhhhhhh)

Spook_ie · 03-02-2008 04:11PM

You obviously read too fast, but I agree with you, thats probably why I deleted the twaddle of a post

microgirl · 03-02-2008 04:16PM

Niall1234 wrote: »

microgirl, seamus is largely right in what he is saying.

Ehhh, I know he is, 'cos he's the one I was agreeing with

It was Alun's statement, and the "experience" he used as evidence to back it up, that I have an issue with.

We are not the worst drivers in Europe by a long shot. We aren't even the worst drivers in Western Europe. But we are a lot worse than drivers in France (which I can attest to personally. Man, I *love* driving in France!), Germany and probably some other countries.

And the Brits are demons for speeding. Really, really unbelievable (as in, I usually speed when I'm driving in Britain, like doing 80mph on their lovely motorways instead of 70mph, and a huge number of cars pass me out at quite a considerably faster speed)

Calina · 03-02-2008 04:25PM

France has pulled down their road fatality numbers by one third in the past 4 or 5 years and I think the last time I checked they were about akin to ours per head of population but I don't have exact figures to hand. The figure for France last year was 4615 according to their department for road safety figures which is down slightly on the year before.

If you lose your driving licence in France for points related reasons, I believe you have to retake your driving test. I think this should be mandatory here, even without the waiting lists being sorted. If a lot of people know that they could get banned for one year, and then have to wait to retake their driving test, they might be a bit more circumspect.

This is not without its problems though because the numbers being caught driving without a valid licence in France has skyrocketed in the past few years, and predictably, there is a prevailing view that this is all just a money making racket. The country had, however, fatality figures of over 7000 a few years ago and the big big difference that they have made is in enforcement.

Niall1234 · 03-02-2008 04:35PM

microgirl wrote: »

And the Brits are demons for speeding. Really, really unbelievable (as in, I usually speed when I'm driving in Britain, like doing 80mph on their lovely motorways instead of 70mph, and a huge number of cars pass me out at quite a considerably faster speed)

Brits currently have the lowest death rate per population in Europe.

Although, they are the most urbanised nation in Europe, maybe backing up my earlier logic.

Can't disagree with your thought on French and German drivers though. My expierience of driving in Northern Europe has always been a good one.

Calina, from what I can tell, there's a lot of frustration by Irish motorists about the RSA and the Garda Traffic Corps. They only seem to care about speeding yet no other driving offenses seem to be enforced properly. Dangerous overtaking, incorrect lane usage, tailgating, poor judgement at junctions, improper indicator usage, not check mirrors etc etc are all problems on our roads which aren't properly enforced.

In fact, I've read numerous accounts over on the Motors boards about Gardai actively attempting entrapment by tailgating drivers to see if they'll speed up and break the speed limit.

Alun · 03-02-2008 05:19PM

microgirl wrote: »

It was Alun's statement, and the "experience" he used as evidence to back it up, that I have an issue with.

I lived and drove in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands for over 20 years before moving here 7 years ago, and drove several tens of thousands of km's both for my work and for pleasure in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Is that enough "experience" for you?

I stick by my original statement, the Irish might not be the most dangerous drivers out there as measured purely by accident statistics but they sure as hell are the worst in terms of apparent plain ignorance of the law, and the impunity with which they flout it. I see more stupidity on the roads here in one day than I'd see on average in a month anywhere else, and that isn't an exaggeration.

Calina · 03-02-2008 05:22PM

On the subject of Belgium I disagree. I lived in Brussels for a number of years and was not impressed by the driving at all. A number of my French and Finnish friends were similarly unimpressed. The very worst I have seen in the EU, however, is in Athens Greece.

That being said, it is irrelevant. There is more than adequate room for improvement here.

meanmachine3 · 03-02-2008 05:33PM

firstly we have a few major problems here.
all drivers with a license outside this jurisdiction are untouchable when it comes to the road traffic act.
we all hear about the fatalities in 2007 and how they are one of the lowest on records but what we're not hearing about is the thousands of injuries caused by accidents. we've all seen the ads on T.V. about the injuries caused.
what we need is drastic changes in our laws which wouldn't take long to pass.

examples are when you reach 12 points you must automatically hand in your license.

anyone caught breaking the laws in this jurisdiction with a foreign license have their vehicles impounded straight away with severe fines to get it back.i believe this happens in some other countries where a foreign driver is caught breaking their laws.
(how they get to where there going is their problem.) the laws are there for everyone using irish roads.

have a speeding points system example as follows.
doing 51-60 in a 50 kph zone 2 points €80 fine
doing 61-70 in a 50 kph zone 3 points €120 fine and so on etc.
and this would be for all the limits. the more you speed the more you pay and suffer with penalty points where it gets to the stage where lets say your caught doing 120kph in a 50 zone gets you an automatic disqualification.

CrowdedHouse · 03-02-2008 05:51PM

Calina wrote: »

Actually, all of this would be academic if prevailing laws were applied more rigorously and on-the-spot fines were issued. Doesn't matter where you're from or what reg you have then.

But that would involve setting up and staffing correctly a decent traffic corps which of course is politically difficult because we don't apparently want to pay for any more staff in the public service.

Nail on head there definitely.

If you knew you were going to get done you'd be careful.

Fact is I could probably get into my car now this minute,drive from Galway to Dublin,break every rule in the book and I'd be 'unlucky' to be caught at any of it.

Even the most law abiding of drivers get frustrated when they see others 'getting away with it'....shur if he can do why can't I

Discussion on driving standards in Ireland

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