Number of deaths on our roads

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RMCF

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It seems everyday that we hear about more deaths on our roads.

Although every single case is a tragedy, I have recently been shocked by how many of these deaths only involve one car.

That to me doesn't make it an accident, except in rare occasions. It is usually either bad driving or driving under the influence, which to me doesn't constitute an accident.

I don't mean to sound callous, but when I hear that someone crashed into a tree, or into a ditch or whatever at 4am then for me its driver error, especially when there is no other car involved.

Is it time that the Garda were making public that the drivers involved were over the limit or high? After the news programmes we hear nothing except debates about road quality, standard of driving, driving tests, speed etc. For me if drunk/high people decide to speed around in their cars I'd ratehr they took themselves out and not some innocent driver/family coming the other way.
 
I agree.

3 months ago a 21 year old friend of mine was killed in a single vehicle crash. He was not the driver but all 3 people in the vehicle had been drinking since 6pm the previous night, the crash happened at 9.40 in the morning. He was stupid to get in the vehicle anyway and one person had already got out because he was concerned about the driver's behaviour. Yet on the national news it was reported again as an "accident" and no mention was made of the real situation which was that the driver was drunk, driving at speeds of up to 120 kph and that my friend was not wearing a seatbelt. Even locally all that was said was a man was arrested at the scene and later released. The driver is a full licence holder, road and weather conditions were fine. This person is now back on the road.:mad:

Even if he is eventually charged and convicted of a crime by the time it happens it won't have any real impact.

I understand that the press take a soft approach out of respect for the deceased person's family but yes they really need to report the facts which in my friends case was that he was killed as a result of a drunk speeding driver hitting a ditch, he was flung around the back of a van and his neck snapped in two.
 
I really think that all drivers should be breathalysed or have to give a blood or urine sample at the scene of an accident. I think this was suggested before, but was shelved for some reason. I've heard of too many cases where the other driver stank of drink, but nothing more was ever heard about it.
 
I'd have to agree, each weekend we get a 'tragic end' to 1/2/3/4 young people, normally accompanied wth a photo of them at their debs / graduation.... No word that they were drunk / high, doing excessive speeds.
If they were killed by a friend with a knife we'd get every gory details, but this tiptoeing around sensibilities is annoying and to me dilutes the shock factor that could be a warning to others.
 
RMCF said:
That to me doesn't make it an accident, except in rare occasions. It is usually either bad driving or driving under the influence, which to me doesn't constitute an accident.
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That's a very sweeping statement. Three kids have died in the past 36 hours in 2 accidents that could not be categorised as cases of "bad driving" or "driving under the influence"

You ignore the effect of bad road design and the phenomena of over-tiredness and people falling asleep at the wheel.
 
ubiquitous - falling asleep at the wheel is bad driving in my books.

This has been discussed here before and I think we all know that none of us (including the journos) can be sure of the details in the hours and days immediately following an incident until a full investigation has been carried out, so to report something as clearly the result of drunk driving may not be responsible. Equally, not reporting it as drunk driving when there is evidence to hand (reliable eye-witness accounts) is also not responsible.

z
 
Also - statistically, bad road design would account for a more or less constant number of incidents throughout the hours of the day at a given location. If the incidents take place at night then I would view that as bad driving given the (constant) state of the road.

I don't keep track so I could be wrong, but I tend to hear of a lot more single vehicle accidents at night than during the day.

I do accept that road design in Ireland is often quite poor and leads to dangerous situations.

z
 
Surely part of being a good driver is driving at a speed and in a manner suitable to cope with the road conditions? I agree many of the roads are in a poor condition, though I think the main problem is confusing signage.
 
Signage has little to do with it.

When there is a dedicated class in schools (or a section on it as part of the driving theory test) to teach the physics of driving and what can happen and why, then we may have less deaths on our roads that are not related to drink-driving.

Grip, steering, acceleration, braking, understeer, oversteer, opposite lock, cadence braking etc... should all be explained and taught by someone who understands it and understands driving.

There's not much point (IMO) someone getting into a car if they do not undderstand at least half of those things and understand them WELL.

How a car behaves under various conditions (tyres, steering angle, braking force, momentum, camber, gear, engine speed etc) is THE most underestimated reason why there are so many 'single-person' car crashes.

A lot of all crashes (or deaths) could be avoided by having the drivers understand the details that keep your car on the road but could put another car into a wall.
 
zag said:
Equally, not reporting it as drunk driving when there is evidence to hand (reliable eye-witness accounts) is also not responsible.
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Agreed, but I presume there is sometimes a difficulty in doing so in certain cases, for fear that the publicity might prejudice future criminal proceedings?
 
Pique318 said:
When there is a dedicated class in schools (or a section on it as part of the driving theory test) to teach the physics of driving and what can happen and why, then we may have less deaths on our roads that are not related to drink-driving.
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I think that there is a suspicion internationally that driving classes in schools lead to increases in the numbers of schoolkids driving, leading in turn to higher rates of accidents and fatalities.
 
Pique318, that sounds like a good idea (are there any such courses available?). However, I have had problems with signs, mainly on wet nights in Dublin. In an unfamiliar area, you approach a junction with no signs to tell you if you are at the junction you are taking or not, and with no way of seeing if there are lane markings, or where they are, without a hope of seeing if there's a bus lane or not, until you are at the junction. (in the rain, it's hard to tell road markings from the shiny lines left when the road has been repaired). So you have no hope of knowing where you are going, or where on the road you should be even if you do know, until the last minute. At the same time you have cars driving at you who know the road and are irritated that you are dithering. I find these situations dreadfull... (though they don't happen often)
 
terrysgirl33 said:
Pique318, that sounds like a good idea (are there any such courses available?). However, I have had problems with signs, mainly on wet nights in Dublin. In an unfamiliar area, you approach a junction with no signs to tell you if you are at the junction you are taking or not, and with no way of seeing if there are lane markings, or where they are, without a hope of seeing if there's a bus lane or not, until you are at the junction. (in the rain, it's hard to tell road markings from the shiny lines left when the road has been repaired). So you have no hope of knowing where you are going, or where on the road you should be even if you do know, until the last minute. At the same time you have cars driving at you who know the road and are irritated that you are dithering. I find these situations dreadfull... (though they don't happen often)
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Another by-product of this particular problem is the number of people who are killed each year as a result of cars doing inappropriate u-turns on public roads.
 
zag said:
ubiquitous - falling asleep at the wheel is bad driving in my books.

This has been discussed here before and I think we all know that none of us (including the journos) can be sure of the details in the hours and days immediately following an incident until a full investigation has been carried out, so to report something as clearly the result of drunk driving may not be responsible. Equally, not reporting it as drunk driving when there is evidence to hand (reliable eye-witness accounts) is also not responsible.

z
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There is a lot of hypocrisy too. Never mind the ridiculous argument of allowing patrons in country pubs to have a few pints and drive, go to any suburban pub or restaurant in Dublin any night of the week and observe people drinking all night and then getting into cars! Speaking from experience I see this in Malahide, Swords, Portmarnock, Dublin City Centre etc all the time. It is not only boyracers doing this, but, so called "respectable" members of the community. The vintners lobby is too powerful, especially in the Dáil, but, the Gardai are under-resourced too.

The latest trends include.... approaching and then driving through roundabouts without braking or yielding (roundabout design issue?), pulling out of sideroads in front of cars on main roads in the belief that eye contact has been established and the onus is on the cars on the main road to brake, ignoring one way systems in shopping centre car parks to grab the free space, flashing lights at drivers in inside lanes on motorways to drive faster, undertaking on motorways to get one car ahead, crossing two or more lanes in one move to exit a motorway etc!

This is going on in broad daylight so what happens in the wee small hours!

More cameras, a highway police patrol, driving classes in all second level school and a total ban on driving with any drink would do for starters.
 
ubiquitous said:
I think that there is a suspicion internationally that driving classes in schools lead to increases in the numbers of schoolkids driving, leading in turn to higher rates of accidents and fatalities.
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I think it has more to do with increased wealth.

We already have increased wealth and kids are already driving Civic Vtecs and Starlet Turbos without understanding anything about driving except 0-60 times.

To be honest, I reckon a lot of 'experienced' drivers could do with that kind of training also. Lane dicipline is brutal in Ireland, Indicators are optional accessories and the amount of drivers who seem to be in 'la-la' land while driving is incredible.

Whatever about the headline grabbing 'drink-driving' campaigns, there should be a covert Garda presence on roads to spot this behaviour.

If I can see it every day, then surely the cops could !!
 
ubiquitous said:
That's a very sweeping statement. Three kids have died in the past 36 hours in 2 accidents that could not be categorised as cases of "bad driving" or "driving under the influence"

You ignore the effect of bad road design and the phenomena of over-tiredness and people falling asleep at the wheel.
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I am sorry but I don't agree with you.

I was prompted to start this thread after a death locally (and 3 severely injured passangers).

I live a few miles from the road in question. It is straight for about 2 miles and the point at which the car crashed was in the middle of this stretch. The driver crashed on the SAME STRETCH last year.

Tell me this isn't bad driving. The driver was either driving too fast or under the influence.

I appreciate that this is an awful tradegy for the family and appreciate that the police don't want to come out and say "the driver was 3 times over the limit and crashed at 80mph". But I am sure that the family find out these details anyway after the event.

I was just saying that when we watch it on the news we get the outcry about driving standards, bad roads, ministers having to try to defend figures on road deaths, etc etc. But we have to face facts - if people want to drive at crazy speeds (be it with alcohol in them or not) then there is nothing we can do about it.
 
Of course "bad driving" & "driving under the influence" cause deaths, and many of them. My point is that it is mistake to concentrate exclusively on these causes. Bad road design and over-tiredness also add significantly to the death toll. You will rarely hear the authorities admit that bad road design is a factor, presumably for fear of being sued. There is very little the authorities can do to stop over-tiredness (its isn't an offence to drive while tired), so they downplay it.

That said, I agree, "if people want to drive at crazy speeds (be it with alcohol in them or not) then there is nothing we can do about it".
 
ubiquitous said:
There is very little the authorities can do to stop over-tiredness (its isn't an offence to drive while tired), so they downplay it.
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In Australia and the US they have small roadside places every 50 miles or so where you can stop and get a free tea or coffee and biscuits. It wouldn't be a bad idea to give this a go. My sister uses it all the time in the states, and I used to use it in Australia myself. It was a very sociable thing, I found. People would stop for coffee and a chat, and then be on their way.
 
Wearing seatbelts is always a good start. While my heart goes out to the families of the two girls killed in Longford this week - what car has 4 seatbelts in the back seat? The car was a BMW, not a people carrier.

A young child was killed earlier this month near my house in an accident. How? She was in the front seat and was suffocated by the airbag...what happened to not sitting in the front seat until you were 12? The law is there for a reason, seatbelts and airbags protect if you're at a certain level, but if you're too small to reach the level, these things can kill.

Accidents do sometimes just happen but more often than not, they are caused and the consequences ruin lives.
 
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