Multiple Fatalities Car Crash

[Romulan]

Another day and more young people killed on the road.

Can anyone explain how teenagers can afford to purchase, tax, insure, NCT and run a car at such a young age? Not to mention driving lessons.

And given the risk to this age group - teenagers/your adults/male - , do parents actually contribute to these costs?

And if they do not contribute directly, do they do so indirectly by not expecting young people to contribute to the house or guaranteeing loans etc?

I recall my father telling me I could have any car I could afford to buy and run and he would not be helping in any way. He reckoned this would make me more careful. That and it meant mid 20s before I could afford a car.

Its just plain distressing the number of incidents.

 

[villa 1]

Most teenagers these days are able to do what they want when they want. A lot of parents have forgotten how to supervise/educate their children. Most teenagers these days are interested in drink/drugs/sex and also conning their parents. You can't say boo to a teen nowadays as they have become very disrespectfull to elders. In my day you got a clip around the ear and that was the end of the lip!!
Tragic road fatalities again but you have to ask yourself what was a 17 yr old doing driving a car with other teens in it at 7am in the morning. My condolensces go out to their parents.
In my area the amount of boy/girl racers is incredible. They are barely out of nappies and they're out driving, very poorly in a lot of cases.

 

[Protocol]

I am curious as to why or how 4 children would be driving in a car at 7am?

That seems unusual, in my opinion.

There was a fifth person present, maybe they were an adult???

 

[ney001]

. Most teenagers these days are interested in drink/drugs/sex and also conning their parents. You can't say boo to a teen nowadays as they have become very disrespectfull to elders. In my day you got a clip around the ear and that was the end of the lip!!

Bit of a generalization there! . In the words of Baz Luhrmann " Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders"

That aside, I had a car at 17 (in my 30's now) I got a job at 16 worked weekends and evenings to pay for it - cost me £3000 at the time - paid my own tax, own insurance and all associated costs. Dad thought me to drive early on - passed my text at 18 I think. One of the problems here is a lack of garda supervision, particularly in the rural towns. In the rural stations, they are usually unmanned or partially manned and everybody knows when the gardai are there or out on the roads checking speed, tax etc. I know of one town where there is one patrol car, when it leaves the station it does the exact same route through the town, up the motorway and back again so everybody knows that once the car leaves the town it will be gone for 20minutes. (used to be very handy to know for lock-ins on a Friday night). In my own town a the moment the gardai changeover at 8am and are always sitting in the local garage getting a coffee at 7.45am. The kids know the routines and know how to avoid ever coming into contact with a garda. The second problem is our ridiculous un-policed license system i.e get a provisional and hop in to the car, fail your test and get straight back into the car!.

Absolutely devastating news today - two brothers as well, am gutted for the parents.

 

[villa 1]

Yes your'e right. It is a bit of a generalisation but it's not far from the truth. Fair play for your car test success at 18 but the are many provisional licensed kids driving like lunatics on our roads today. In my area they go racing on a dual carriageway, and usually throw in a couple of dounuts for good measure, in the early hours of the morning. These cars a driven screaming flat out and it's only a matter of time before the young driver will loose control, flick over the central median and kill an innocent motorist coming in the opposite direction. I don't hear to many sirens at night!!

 

[pixiebean22]

I would like to point out that having lived in Kerry when I was a teenager and given that there is no public transport the majority of teenagers are often left with no choice but to learn to drive as early as possible. My parents refused to be treated as a taxi service (and rightly so) so my siblings and I all learned to drive at a young age. I know some might say that cycling/walking could have been an option but given that we were easily an hour-two hour walk from the nearest town and that you would be using narrow winding roads to get there cycling/walking was not the best option.

Yes, teenagers are in an "at risk" group when it comes to road safety etc but take into account the fact that a lot of them have no other choice. My siblings and I learned to drive to attend various things including school related activities.

Maybe the reason there was so many of them in the car is because they were car pooling.

I think the real issue is the fact that there is so little done for public transport in rural areas.

 

[Caveat]

I don't hold out much hope for improvement or change.

The sad fact is IMO that incidents like these are merely the consequence of arrogance, bad attitude, disrespect - whatever. There will always be an element of teenagers like this. This will never change. It just so happens that being in charge of a car and taking risks/showing off has potentially much worse consequences than swaggering down the street and being rude to people on a Saturday afternoon. But both stem from the same arrogance.

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"

Not a contemporary sociologist of politician, the above is attributed to
Hesiod, 8th century BC.

 

[Homer]

My parents refused to be treated as a taxi service (and rightly so) so my siblings and I all learned to drive at a young age.

I hear what you're saying, but I know that when my children were teenagers I was always happy to act as a taxi service if it meant I was sure they would get home safely. But then again, I live in Dublin and it was maybe once or twice a week. If I lived miles from nowhere and it meant driving around all day every day, I might have had a different attitude.

 

[thedaras]

Very sad news to hear of so many young people who died and those injured,god love the families.
A poster made reference to the age of those involved ,I dont know how old the driver was,but would it be an idea that anyone aged under say 21 should not be allowed carry more than one passenger?
Probably unenforceable..and unrealistic..but I often hear of fatal car crashes with several young people in the car,perhaps this would go some way to solving this problem.
If we could just actually enforce the laws we already have ,that would help too.

I agree that for those who live in the country that in most cases a car is an essential.

 

[Green]

I think the real issue is the fact that there is so little done for public transport in rural areas.

I dont wish to drag the thread off topic but while rural public transport is an issue the more important issue here is planning. If we want to have public services then, in my view, we have to look very closely at where people live. Given the current dispersed nature of development and one off houses in Ireland, it is impossible to provide any meaningful level of public service. Eventually, and we may not like it, we will have to make hard choices in Ireland between where we live and the level of public services we receive.

 

[pixiebean22]

Completely agree with YOBR.

And again, not to drag the thread off topic, there are thousands of houses dotted around Kerry (and I'm sure other counties in Ireland) and it would be really impossible to provide a proper level of buses say, you would probably have hundreds of bus routes, some travelling to just one house situated way off the beaten track.

 

[peelaaa]

The bad roads have a big part to play in fatalities like this.

It only takes less than a second lack of concentration and your tyres can be dragged into a muddy grass verge.

Why not fit roads with kerbs between the tarmac and the verge like they do in more civilised countries. I dread my kids starting to drive here.

When I began driving I made mistakes and learnt from them. However I learnt in a different country where the roads are better condition.

 

[pixiebean22]

Peelaaa that is obviously something different authorities have considered but a lot of the roads (and again I will say Kerry because I have actually lived there) in Kerry are privately owned but are used by all public traffic. Where my parents live in particular the road to our house is a private road and either side of it there is land belonging to many different families in the area so to have it resurfaced etc you have to get everyone in agreement and everyone willing to shell out for the costs involved. Now I know this may not be the case everywhere but there are plenty like it around Kerry.

I would also point out though that it was revealed this morning that the crash happened on the "Killarney to Mallow road on the N72 at Carrigeen".

 

[Shawady]

This might sound a tad over the top, but what about limiting the engine size for young drivers?
If they drove a car with a very small engine it might cut down on accidents due to speeding.

 

[micmclo]

I don't know if limited engine size would solve anything.

Most of us learned in the family car.
Do we get people to buy another small engined car and leave it aside for their sons and daughters?

Anyway, such a system already exists in motorcycles, pass your test and you are restricted for two years

 

[Mpsox]

Eventually, and we may not like it, we will have to make hard choices in Ireland between where we live and the level of public services we receive.

That exists already, if you live in a rural area, you have limited access to public transport (if any), have to travel farther for medical treatement, social services etc.

 

[Green]

That exists already, if you live in a rural area, you have limited access to public transport (if any), have to travel farther for medical treatement, social services etc.

I agree, it does exists but I would like a situation whereby that inequality is reduced if people lived closer together..

 

[Firefly]

I think the issue of public transport is a red herring. Whilst we do not yet know of the circumstance of this particular accident, most if not all young male related deaths on the roads are caused by excessive speed...if they drove at normal speeds and carefully, we would of course have some accidents but not these type of horrendous accidents. i.e. Older people in rural areas don't have public transport either but do not seem to have these types of accidents. It's more of a need for speed rather than a need for public transport IMO.

 

[Chris]

It is indeed tragic, but lack of public transport, road conditions or speed have nothing to do with the high rate of road deaths in this country. As already mentioned providing "adeuquate" public transport in rural areas is next to impossible, given the remoteness and sparse population of some ares. I agree that road conditions in this country have a lot to wish for, but drivers have to adjust their driving to the conditions that prevail, whether it be bad surfaces or bad weather.
Speed is the biggest red herring. It is constantly being branded by the RSA as the "biggest killer", and if only we all reduced our speed by 10% more lives would be saved. If speed were really a problem when it comes to road deaths then Germany would have to have by far the highest rate of road deaths, which it doesn't. Another example is Sweden, which has one of lowest road death rates; it is said by anti-speed campainers that it is due to strict speed limits and enforcement that Sweden has such safe roads. But this completely ignores the fact that for most of the year you cannot drive at anywhere near the speedlimits.
What does make a big difference in both Germany and Sweden is their driver eduction systems. Road safety and rules of the road are taught to school children. Learner drivers are only allowed to drive with an instructor in a specially fitted instructors car; only once they pass a written test after about a dozen theory hours, and after taking specialised lessons for motorway, country road and night time driving, do learners get to do the driving test. And only after passing the test are they alowed to drive alone. Not sure about Sweden, but in Germany a newly qualified driver is only allowed half the normal penalty point in the first 2 years to encourage better driver behaviour.
Driver education in this country is pretty abismal; maybe not the worst in Europe, but I am absolutely against allowing learner drivers on the road without a qualified instructor. I believe the reason that the driver education system is not being completely overhauled is for political reasons. As soon as it was announced a few years ago that L drivers who were not accompanied by a qualified driver would be heavily fined, there was public outcry. Imagine what people would be saying if the L plate was gotten rid of altogether.
Speed is not the biggest killer, it is drivers' incompetence and ignorance when it comes to adjusting their driving to the prevailing conditions.

 

[pixiebean22]

If only half the laws in this country were actually enforced.

A system like what Chris describes in Germany would be a stepping stone at least.