Dangerous Driving - Red Lights

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Firefly

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I remember as a young lad my mother used to call drivers who went through the lights late as "Amber Gamblers". Nobody went through a red light however. Today, in Cork at least, it is wholesale. I would go so far as to call it an epidemic. 2 incidents in the past week have left me shocked. For anyone familiar with Cork City, I was approaching the lights from Gael Cross at UCC wanting to turn left onto Western Road. The lights went amber and I stopped normally. As the lights went red my small fella asked me to change the radio station. As I was doing so, and the lights were now red for at least 1 second, the car behind me swerved past me and shot around the corner up the Western Road. If anyone was crossing the road or if there was a cyclist on the road they were goners. The other day at a similiar T junction I saw a car coming through the red lights and had to mount a footpath to avoid the car who took off normally through a green light.

Without being too dramatic, someone is going to get killed. For what? A few lousey seconds. If we ever want to have our kids cycling again things need to change.

As for what can be done, I think penalty points are not the answer...too many people get off on technicalities etc. I think the Gardai should have the power to seize the car for 24 hours for dangerous driving. If someone breaks a red light a tow-truck could be called and the car impounded for 24 hours with a 200e fine for retrieval. Try it for 6 months and see how it goes.

It's at the stage now where I see more and more cars creeping through green lights. As I said, someone is going to get killed.
 
Yes Firefly, it could have been me who wrote your post. You're right. Try any of the entrances to the Kinsale Road roundabout where cars continue to drive through red lights for up to four seconds. A disaster waiting to happen there. It is the same with all the other roundabouts nearby. Then there is the turnoff for Douglas where drivers gamble on red again and of course occupy yellow boxes blocking traffic from everywhere else.

Only last week in Cork after I had stopped at a red light the guy behind started gesticulating with his fist. Not content with that he jumped out of his car, banged on my side window screaming "You would have got through . . ." I apologised for stopping because of the red light and wished him a good wake before his burial in nearby St-Michaels as I reckon he does this every day. I knew the guy (he did not recognise me in his rage) and he was driving to his home 50 yards distant.
 
I agree with Firefly and Leper - I regularly encounter dangerous driving to the point that when I hear of a motor accident - I genuinely wonder about the use of the word accident, reasonably defined as:

1. An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
2. An event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.

The bottom line is that with all the crap driving we see around us, it is not unexpected and it is not by chance that people get killed and maimed.


Is there a facility to report dangerous driving? Have people done this? What was the outcome?
 
I fully agree that there is a lot of dangerous driving out there and not just at traffic lights.

Point taken Dan re what constitutes an accident - e.g. how many MG of alcohol does one have to have in one's system before it's no longer an accident? By extension, surely a similar responsibility/culpability attaches to excessive speed, not respecting traffic lights, etc.

For the record, my comments are not Cork related.
 
A few years ago I got a present of an Advanced Driving Course. Always I considered myself to be a good driver. Having taken the Advanced Course I learned that the vast majority of drivers have faults including me. There is no such thing as the perfect driver. There are those with lifelong bad habits e.g. breaking and then indicating or not indicating etc.

Common sense is not so common on the road either. It is easy to blame speedsters, women drivers, male drivers, ambler gamblers, drunken drivers, over 60's, Sunday drivers, boy racers etc. But, if all of us changed our bad driving habits over a long period of time lives would be saved and driving would become more enjoyable. But, if you are dead beat on racing from red light to red light then . . . sooner or later you'll get your just desserts . . . just don't take us with you.

Somebody above wanted stricter driving laws. We already have the laws, but they need to be implemented. Some kindness towards other drivers goes a long way too. Remember we all have our moments.
 
Leper said:
Always I considered myself to be a good driver.
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Reminds me of the surveys which find that 68% of men believe they are above average drivers...............and 76% above average in bed :po_O
 
Dan Murray said:
Reminds me of the surveys which find that 68% of men believe they are above average drivers...............and 76% above average in bed :po_O
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It is of course perfectly possible for more than 50% of drivers to be better than average.

I am certainly a better than average driver. I don't break red lights, I don't break the speed limit, I can merge effectively at roundabouts.

You may also be a better than average driver, perhaps you can get ahead of me 9 times out of 10 between one set of lights and the next. Maybe you can get your car to go from 0 to 60 even faster than it says in the manual.

If you allow everyone to define good for themselves then its perfectly possible for most to be better than average.
 
I have noticed this practice in Cork recently, they can get camera's that take pictures of the red light jumpers, trouble is it will take a lot of camera's.
 
Drones are being used as speed cameras in some places. They could also be used to catch people running red lights etc.
 
It's not a uniquely Cork thing, I see it regularly turning left onto the N7 at Newlands Cross and indeed on a lot of the lights on the Belgard road in Dublin , there seems to be a perception with some drivers that if the light has only been red for 3 or 4 seconds, it's not really red and you don't really have to stop.
 
Purple said:
Drones are being used as speed cameras in some places. They could also be used to catch people running red lights etc.
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Where are drones being used as speed cameras etc? Has a "Drone User Allowance" been negotiated by the relative trade union?
 
Leper said:
Where are drones being used as speed cameras etc? Has a "Drone User Allowance" been negotiated by the relative trade union?
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Australia and, I think, parts of the USA.
If they were introduced here we could get ten employees from Irish Water, you know, the former Council Employees, and allocate them as "Minders" or "Supervisors" for the drones. The "work" could be done from home as the actual running of the units would be outsourced to a private company who employs former convicted perverts who used to use drone to look through bedroom windows. Eventually there would have to be a tribunal, running for 15 years (or however long it took to turn 45 lawyers into millionaires), during which the "Minders" and the people who "suffered at the hands of the Drones" could relate their stories. The fact that there was no substance to the issue would be lost under the wave of Human Interest fluff pieces on Morning Ireland and Claire Byrne Live. They would just have to follow the Water Charges template there.
 
Now that I think about it the working from home bit mightn't be a runner as there would have to be a workplace ergonomics and Health and Safety audit done on the offices (living rooms) of the "Wurkers". It would be cheaper to just de-centralist the operation and pay the hard working "Wurkers" the mileage for their bi-monthly meetings.
Training costs would of course be extra.
 
Sincere apologies Firefly - your thread has deviated somewhat from its course.

It is not the fault of the immediately previous poster, the "IPP" - the union marshmallow was presented and the IPP simply bit its ass off in an involuntary reflex action - in effect, he had no real choice.

No, the guilty party here is definitely the Leper who introduced this marshmallow in the first place.
 
Dan Murray said:
Sincere apologies Firefly - your thread has deviated somewhat from its course.

It is not the fault of the immediately previous poster, the "IPP" - the union marshmallow was presented and the IPP simply bit its ass off in an involuntary reflex action - in effect, he had no real choice.

No, the guilty party here is definitely the Leper who introduced this marshmallow in the first place.
Click to expand...

Guilty as Charged . . .

Lep
 
Seriously guys, if we don't change our driving habits the carnage will continue. We can blame drivers who drink. We can blame boy racers. We can blame the condition of our cars. We can haunt the cyclists. Let's not forget the pedestrians too and we can have them shoulder the blame. Everybody is wrong except ourselves.

We've had the tv ads filmed from 6 feet down in a grave. Then there were the gardaí visiting the home to advise the road death of a family member. We have had people filmed in hospitals maimed because of involvement in road traffic accidents. Victims have spoken out from wheelchairs etc etc.

When was the last time you heard somebody from a road traffic accident admit he was 100% in the wrong? You'll hear "I know I was the main cause, but the other guy was 40% the cause."

Until we cop on and show some kind of kindness towards others on the road and stop thinking the way we do our dreadful road death/serious injury count will continue to grow and grow. Let's start by showing good example. Well, we have to start somewhere.
 
Dan Murray said:
Sincere apologies Firefly - your thread has deviated somewhat from its course.

It is not the fault of the immediately previous poster, the "IPP" - the union marshmallow was presented and the IPP simply bit its ass off in an involuntary reflex action - in effect, he had no real choice.

No, the guilty party here is definitely the Leper who introduced this marshmallow in the first place.
Click to expand...
My Friend Leper knows me too well and, as usual, played me like a fiddle.
My am a hapless victim of his nefarious ways.
 
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