Campaign for reason from the RSA

TwoLegged wrote: »

In Ireland, as in other countries, young male drivers are by far the most accident-prone group. In the UK, young males are also the only age group in which road accidents are the single biggest cause of accidental death (I don't know the Irish figures, but I'd be surprised if they are significantly different).

So there is a particular problem with young male drivers, and when trying to reduce accident rates it makes sense to focus on the group which has the most accidents.

Yes, that is exactly what I said :

zynaps wrote:

It certainly makes sense to reach out to this "statistically significant" group*.

However, that does not mean that any approach can be used to deal with the problem. You can't just say "young men have the most accidents, so let's put every young man in jail until they're at least 35", can you?

So, like I said, the scope and fairness of any new measures must be evaluated properly and justified before ham-fisted restrictions are lumped on every young male driver.

Consider the backlash against racial profiling by the US police forces, where young black males were (and are) often harrassed by the police, without them having committed any crime, simply because young black males in those areas were statistically more likely to commit crimes. This practice was widely denounced and strong anti-discrimination measures have come into place in various organisations.

If discriminating against people due to their skin colour is wrong, surely doing so on the basis of age and sex is just as wrong. Where do we draw the line? Why accept one and not the other? Putting extra restrictions on young males would be an extremely negative, alienating and unjust practice, which is why I argued for more positive approaches. Can you imagine a curfew on young black males in crime-prone US cities?

If a scheme like this is instituted, I will protest strongly and encourage others to do so. Facing higher insurance prices due to age and sex discrimination is bad enough, but this would be a serious suppression of equality rights IMO.

hey, im being honest, i totally agree, i was absoloutly discusted when i first learned about the rsa's half assed national campain for wasting much needed money during the resession..

its not bad enough that young drivers are steyrotyped, loaded with extortinate premiums for insurance, restricted to cars so small they got to kneel down just to get inside the thing due to the fact they either can afford the insurance for a saloon car or are just point blank refused insurance due to sumthing the government selectivly aknolege as "AGEISM".. young drivers are expected to fork out thousands of euros just to enjoy sumthing as basic as a mode of transportation which many people can easily obtain and afford, Im 24 myself and after 4 years claim free driving, my insurance which i am in no way going to describe as "affordable" is still very pricy for what it is. i really feel sorry for any 18 year old male scraping every last ounce of his spare cash together just to get his foot in the door. my first car insurance a few years back on a lowsey 1.3ltr mazda 323 was an astonishing 5.5k, the guy in the insurance company actually told me that car insurance pretty much dosent get any more expensive...

The rsa has deemed young drivers mass murderers, well thats very funny...

elderly people to me seem very dangerous on the road, no one can honestly dispute the fact that an 80 year old woman driving through a residental estate and a young kid runs out from behind a car that that woman has the physical ability to react quickly.

it was always my belife that middle age drivers were the biggest offenders of drink driving? sure we heard gay byrne admiting that it was such the norm back in the day so it was perfectly this hypocrite to blame younger driver for road deaths, how dare we be young!

the rsa now have theyre "he drives she dies" campaign... oh how we all have forgot... it seems that having a penis suddenly means that we have this unquenching desire to drive really dangerously once a woman enters the car, so where does the gender bashing end? should we replace the term "drivers error" with just "male errorcause it just seems now that male drivers are only capible of causing major road accidents, funny how youtube is full of videos of women causing comedic accidents.

id like to just say, im not bashing at groups of people that i have mentioned above, im merly using them as examples, i belive everyone reguardless of age is capible of causing an accident and every young driver shouldnt be penalised just because they can do it! gay byrne is a pi** poor excuse for a human being, let me finish in quoting this hypocrite who has the nerve to tell people hes never met that theyre natural born killers - let me cut and paste my fav parts of this interview


By Caitrina Cody
Thursday July 02 2009

quote -

I remember the days when I drove home from the 'Late Late Show' late at night -- the great thing in those days was to have a drink or two, or three, in the green room with the guests to thank them for coming and all that," he said.

Undoubtedly I was over the limit, night after night, until at some stage I was told by the controller of programmes that I wasn't to drive myself home from the show anymore, drunk or sober," recalled Mr Byrne.

Certainly 10 years ago, perhaps even five years ago, if you told your pals that you had had 17 large brandies last night and drove yourself home -- just about making it through the gate -- you probably would have been clapped on the back for it."

"Many of us thought nothing about drinking and driving back in the day

"Thank God I got away with it -- thank God that nothing ever happened to anyone," he said

Mr Rsa is so right:)