Appalling standard of driving among old men

hoodwinked · 22-04-2015 10:58AM

if they could just enforce the rules that are already there with appropriate penalties that actually make people change their behaviours we'd be off to a better start than banning people who are old/re-sitting tests.

just yesterday i was behind a garda car and there i was thinking "great now people will drive properly when they see the traffic core garda car"

nope, the garda car pulled into an off road area to the left of a bus lane with me parallel to them stopped in a traffic queue, a woman in one of those 7 seater cars squeezed past both my car and the garda car IN the 24/7 bus lane she came within millimeter's of hitting both my car and the garda car's wing mirrors,

i saw both gardaí obviously having a debate on if they should stay put or chase her, in the end they stayed put, but people still ignored them and drove down the bus lane and nothing was done about it, when you end up with motorists/road users having no consequences to their actions it's no wonder we end up with driving conditions as bad as they are.

The Backwards Man · 22-04-2015 11:12AM

LorMal wrote: »

I think Gay people should not be allowed to drive. Nor should Black people, Single people, the Unemployed. people from Cork, Muslims and Dwarfs.

Why should we confine casual discrimination to Ageism. Get them off the road - no arguments, ifs, or buts!!

(Backwards Man, my father is 76. Like you, he drives for a living. He is a superb driver and has never crashed or even scraped his car in 55 years driving. He drives carefully but not overly slowly at all)

p.s. Jackie Stewart is 75. Want to tell him he's too old to drive? No ifs or buts?

Thinking about it, maybe 75 is a wee bit on the low side what with people living longer and all, I know a few lads in their 80s fit as fiddles and hashing away. I also know plenty in their 80s that are footery at best on the roads, dangerous at worst, and the only thing that will (hopefully) put them off driving is an incident serious enough to force them to stop.

TallGlass · 22-04-2015 11:20AM

RayM wrote: »

It always seems really stupid that your car has to have a test every two years, but you just need to pass one test (or none at all, if you're a certain age) and you're automatically certified as 'competent' for the next forty years. All drivers, regardless of their age (or gender) should be tested every few years.

Good idea. Till you have the like of the NCT operators coming into the market and failing you cause you didn't cut you toe nails before the test. Like everything in Ireland it be turning into a money spinner and another massive bill for people!

P. Breathnach · 22-04-2015 11:49AM

People who drive very slowly can be irritating to encounter, and I acknowledge that some older people do drive that way. But there may be some sense in it for them: they are providing for their own slowish reaction times. If in all other respects they drive properly, I don't think you should complain about them.

In my experience, most of those who drive very fast are young or middle-aged, and I don't think that they are all as skilful as they think. In particular, I don't trust drivers who tailgate me at 100+ kph - how good is their reaction time?

If somebody is going to run into my car, I'd choose the cautious older person at 40 kph rather than the confident younger driver at 110 kph.

endacl · 22-04-2015 11:57AM

Lets see...

Old men drivers, old lady drivers, young lady drivers, boy racers, taxi drivers, learner drivers, tractor drivers, van drivers, Nissan micra drivers...

Who have I left off? By my reckoning, there are only a hundred or so good drivers in the country. Obviously, I'm one of them. Who are the others? They must live near me. Practically every driver I meet on the road is pretty much grand pretty much almost all the time.

JustTheOne · 22-04-2015 11:59AM

Some of the dangerous driving I am seeing lately is shocking.

People breaking red lights or swervng.

Driving into yellow boxes with no regard.

Its getting worst but its all ages and both male and female

Streetwalker · 22-04-2015 12:17PM

hoodwinked wrote: »

if they could just enforce the rules that are already there with appropriate penalties that actually make people change their behaviours we'd be off to a better start than banning people who are old/re-sitting tests.

just yesterday i was behind a garda car and there i was thinking "great now people will drive properly when they see the traffic core garda car"

nope, the garda car pulled into an off road area to the left of a bus lane with me parallel to them stopped in a traffic queue, a woman in one of those 7 seater cars squeezed past both my car and the garda car IN the 24/7 bus lane she came within millimeter's of hitting both my car and the garda car's wing mirrors,

i saw both gardaí obviously having a debate on if they should stay put or chase her, in the end they stayed put, but people still ignored them and drove down the bus lane and nothing was done about it, when you end up with motorists/road users having no consequences to their actions it's no wonder we end up with driving conditions as bad as they are.

Yeap Gardaí have a huge role to play. Enforcement is a joke in this country.

Streetwalker · 22-04-2015 12:28PM

JustTheOne wrote: »

Some of the dangerous driving I am seeing lately is shocking.

People breaking red lights or swervng.

Driving into yellow boxes with no regard.

Its getting worst but its all ages and both male and female

Some years ago there was an accident on Taney road here is south Dublin just outside the Goat pub car park. Anyone familiar with the area will know drivers every morning come down the road on the wrong side to turn right at the junction towards Sandyford often doing crazy speeds. One morning a lady got seriously injured as she attempted to pull out of the car park heading up towards Dundrum and met one of these arseholes on the wrong side of the road. Gardaí set up a patrol there for about a week afterwards pulling in and ticketing the idiots putting everyone's life at risk.

After that (going back 3 years now) I haven't seen a single Garda at that spot and I travel up the road every morning. It's not just old men, it's actually mostly younger people who seem to have no regard for the rules of the road or their own and other peoples life and think they aren't supposed to wait in traffic like everyone else. We don't take these type of traffic violations seriously in Ireland and only when we see proper enforcement and more importantly punishment will people drive in a civilised manner and have regard for safety.

nullzero · 22-04-2015 12:31PM

This thread has old man stink.

El_Duderino 09 · 22-04-2015 12:36PM

my3cents wrote: »

Lets make tests mandatory before you can drive unaccompanied and see how well that works first.

Can we do both?

El_Duderino 09 · 22-04-2015 01:07PM

TallGlass wrote: »

Good idea. Till you have the like of the NCT operators coming into the market and failing you cause you didn't cut you toe nails before the test. Like everything in Ireland it be turning into a money spinner and another massive bill for people!

There are no perfect systems and everything needs to be paid for. What you're here is that you think it should be done and would complain bitterly if it ever gets done.

If you want more enforcement or more training or more testing, it will cost more money.

Irishcrx · 22-04-2015 01:12PM

They can be really really dangerous on the road, same with aul one's. Driving new Yaris or Micra and swerving all over the place, no idea where they are driving , bearly see over the steering wheel or 5 yards in front of them. Dangerously slow driving as well.

Don't get me wrong , I wouldn't like to be told when I'm 70 that i can't drive any longer either but it should be the cut off point.

I have a neighbour who's about 65-68, the man isn't well I think he is suffering from Alziemers but often he doesn't know where he is or what's going on god love him, but still drives his car, I've even seen him getting into the car and sitting there for 2-3 hours without driving, same coming back almost as if he forgets how to get out of the car or where to park it.

thelad95 · 22-04-2015 01:15PM

Irishcrx wrote: »

They can be really really dangerous on the road, same with aul one's. Driving new Yaris or Micra and swerving all over the place, no idea where they are driving , bearly see over the steering wheel or 5 yards in front of them. Dangerously slow driving as well.

Don't get me wrong , I wouldn't like to be told when I'm 70 that i can't drive any longer either but it should be the cut off point.

I have a neighbour who's about 65-68, the man isn't well I think he is suffering from Alziemers but often he doesn't know where he is or what's going on god love him, but still drives his car, I've even seen him getting into the car and sitting there for 2-3 hours without driving, same coming back almost as if he forgets how to get out of the car or where to park it.

That's really sad. Alzheimers must be such a frightening thing to have.

looksee · 22-04-2015 01:29PM

How are people coming up with this random age of 70? I will be 70 in about a year and a half. I am still a very competent driver, I don't hang about, but I don't speed either (well not very often

).

I could make wild generalisations about the young fellas accelerating through the estate where I live, about 'all the young guys who park in disabled bays' just because I saw one get his comupance yesterday (garda stopped his car in the middle of the high street to quiz him and write a ticket!). I could crib about middle aged men as a result of the middle aged man I saw driving very erratically with an A4 For sale sign in the very centre of his back window, blocking a great deal of his view. But they would be generalisations not facts.

The vast majority of drivers are good, sensible and responsible people, they have to be or there would be carnage on the roads. There are many thoughtless parkers and self absorbed people who think they are entitled to get to where they are going without hindrance, that they are the most important people on the roads, but it is spread throughout the driving population.

I think it would be no harm for everyone to have to re-sit their test at intervals, especially when they have received penalty points, and yes, retesting as they get older, but this sweeping nonsense focussing - abusively - on just one section of the community is pathetic.

The Hill Billy · 22-04-2015 01:46PM

@looksee - Ignore them. Back in our day they would have had a bit more respect for their elders. Oh, the youth of today! Strutting around in their Ramones t-shirts & they wouldn't know their 'Gabba Gabba Hey!' from their 'Hey Ho Let's Go!' Nothing but cheeky pups! I blame the parents. Bring back the birch! That'll learn them. :pac:

looksee · 22-04-2015 02:27PM

The Hill Billy wrote: »

@looksee - Ignore them. Back in our day they would have had a bit more respect for their elders. Oh, the youth of today! Strutting around in their Ramones t-shirts & they wouldn't know their 'Gabba Gabba Hey!' from their 'Hey Ho Let's Go!' Nothing but cheeky pups! I blame the parents. Bring back the birch! That'll learn them. :pac:

How are you getting all this sarcastic 'youth of today' stuff from my post?

Trent Houseboat · 22-04-2015 02:51PM

JustTheOne wrote: »

Some of the dangerous driving I am seeing lately is shocking.

People breaking red lights or swervng.

Driving into yellow boxes with no regard.

Its getting worst but its all ages and both male and female

The breaking of lights is getting to an epidemic level. Pedestrian lights appear to be optional. Any green filter means people can go in whatever direction they want. The first five seconds of a red light count as amber which we all know means speed up (f*ck the people who are stuck in the yellow box because they were going to turn right).

It seems, to me, to be among a younger age group than those mentioned in OP though.

Ally Dick · 22-04-2015 02:55PM

As Bob Monkhouse put it "I'd like to go like my father did, in his sleep.....unlike his passengers who all died screaming"

mathie · 22-04-2015 02:58PM

My next door neighbour is in his early nineties and drives a 15 reg car. I hesitate to say "brand new" as he drives it like its a rental.

You know he's leaving the house because you can hear the sound of the gear box crying out in agony.

TallGlass · 22-04-2015 05:20PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

There are no perfect systems and everything needs to be paid for. What you're here is that you think it should be done and would complain bitterly if it ever gets done.

If you want more enforcement or more training or more testing, it will cost more money.

I have no problem sitting a driving test every 5 or so years. I never said otherwise.

What will happen is people failing there tests on aspects that have nothing to do with your driving as is the case when you bring your car for an NCT. Then 5 years becomes very year etc..

Its a good idea. But no, not in Ireland it will be turned into a cash cow overnight, the safety aspect will be lost. I don't trust anything the government ever tries to set up after Irish Water.

AlekSmart · 22-04-2015 07:16PM

JustTheOne wrote: »

Some of the dangerous driving I am seeing lately is shocking.

People breaking red lights or swervng.

Driving into yellow boxes with no regard.

Its getting worst but its all ages and both male and female

As some other posters note,the truth of the matter is in the level of Enforcement.....no amount of politicking can disguise the sad fact underlined by Liz O Donnell of the RSA in her Feburary Press Release....

http://www.rsa.ie/en/Utility/News/2015/Statement-from-Ms-Liz-ODonnell-Chairperson-Road-Safety-Authority/

The number of Gardaí in the Traffic Corps has fallen from 1,200 in 2009 to approximately :eek: 750 :eek: in 2014.

With the increases in General Population,Licenced Driver numbers and Registered Vehicles,there can be NO justification for the collapse in GTC Numbers,the lack of which forces those remaining members to be used on revenue-generation duties,rather than on Monitoring,Enforcing or Advising on Driving Behaviour as required.

AlekSmart · 22-04-2015 07:22PM

doolox wrote: »

I swear a man in a small Fiesta type car pulled out abruptly from a petrol station on the northbound road from Bray to Shankill in front of me and proceed painfully slowly through a green light at less tha 20 kph in a 50 kph zone then full dead stop at the (then) empty roundabout which leads onto the m50 northbound. I managed to get around him at the rdbt but I swear he joined the motorway behind me at no more than 30 kph..........

Minimum speed limit on motorways is 50 kph but most cars would find 60 - 70 kph in front of them an unexpected obstacle if their attention was distracted.

God knows what they would make of 30 kph Man in front of them.

It's worth noting that there is NO Minimum Speed on Irish Motorways.

The requirement is that any vehicle used on a Motorway must be capable of maintaining a speed of at least 50 Kph,not that that speed has to be maintained.

The Hill Billy · 22-04-2015 07:24PM

looksee wrote: »

How are you getting all this sarcastic 'youth of today' stuff from my post?

Believe it or not, I agree with you. I was making light of the situation by making generalisations about both old & young. Ah well...

cnoc · 22-04-2015 07:30PM

Ally Dick wrote: »

I used to think that women were the worst drivers, but old men take the biscuit

What is the age profile of people that you are categorizing as "old men"?

darkpagandeath · 22-04-2015 07:31PM

Is this because of that lad and the Gate in town ?

Fiskar · 22-04-2015 07:34PM

Equally appalling standard of driving by old women.............

and I live next door to one of them...........

They drive Nissan Micra's and they are evil (the cars I mean

)........

galah · 22-04-2015 08:47PM

Cant believe it took 6 pages until someone mentioned the scurge that is micras and their drivers...:mad: dawdling along at 30 kmh on country roads where you can't overtake, inexplicably speeding up within built up areas, braking every time there's traffic in the oncoming lane, and absolutely no notion about the massive queue of traffic behind them. The list is endless...:mad:

Fluorescence · 22-04-2015 09:02PM

Had an interesting experience with an aul fella in a 151 sports car yesterday. Was coming off a roundabout, in the middle lane as motorway traffic merges from the left and another lane then on the right. Traffic is pretty dense. Aul fella comes up right behind me, swerves abruptly into right-hand lane almost clipping the van there, zooms past me and swerves very sharply back into my lane and very narrowly avoided taking out my driver side headlight, continuing to swerve into the left hand lane which is now a 24hr bus-lane. And yet I guarantee he'd be the type complaining about young drivers like myself. Absolutely atrocious driving.

I don't think it's an age thing, or a gender thing, or even a race/nationality thing (despite several taxi drivers warning me about "The Terrible Blacks" as drivers). Truly atrocious driving is a trait that brings together all walks of life :pac:

Macavity. · 22-04-2015 09:05PM

Let them have their fun. They'll be dead soon.

Cold War Kid · 22-04-2015 10:33PM

17larsson wrote: »

Old people are generally fine at driving. It is just that they are very slow. If everyone else wasn't in such a rush there would be no problem

Nah I don't agree with people holding people up, just because... well no reason really.
In a rush or not in a rush, is not relevant IMO. It's not always about being in a rush - I know the speed limit isn't a target, but to drive well below it and to hold people up, is just being an inconsiderate road user. People shouldn't be rushing everywhere, but they shouldn't have to build some randomer, driving really slowly due to stubbornness, into their routine either.

Appalling standard of driving among old men

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