Driving Miss Crazy
So the Road Safety Authority are trying to find ways to stop young drivers from killing themselves?
They have a hope!
In typical Irish/Nanny State fashion, they see a problem and decide that the answer is more laws.
Zero tolerance on alcohol? Fine, but there are already laws for that.
Night time curfew? Bollox! They would have one hell of a job enforcing that, and anyway, how do the new drivers gain night driving experience?
Increased penalty points? Ha Ha. What difference will that make?
Hazard perception testing? Rubbish. It takes years to become an expert at that. It is impossible to ‘test’.
Age restriction for passengers? How the hell do they enforce that? The first thing a young buck wants to do with his licence is impress his pals/girlfriend. Forget it.
Mandatory tuition? I thought they had that anyway?
Restricted car power? If a bloke has a powerful car, he is going to drive it, and fuck the law.
Extended supervised driving? Considering that for years, half the country were driving on provo licences while unaccompanied, that’s a joke.
Upgraded driving test? The only item that shows a glimmer of hope.
There are a few things that the RSA don’t seem to realise.
Firstly, anyone doing a test is going to be on their best behaviour. They are going to drive by the rulebook. They have no intention of driving like that once they have their licence, simply because the it doesn’t work. When I was learning to drive, my instructor told me there were two ways to drive – the Test Way, and The Right Way. He was spot on. Therefore the test gives no indication whatsoever as to how that person intends to drive.
Secondly, they don’t understand that mixing immaturity, testosterone and a car is like mixing nitric acid and glycerine – potentially explosive. All young drivers think they are brilliant. Speed is king, and you will never teach them otherwise.
Thirdly, they ignore the “it will never happen to me” philosophy. That one alone negates most of their proposals.
If they want to make the roads safer, all they have to do is police the existing laws.
If they had more patrols on the danger spots and fewer on the ‘easy money’ back roads, they would have a chance.
I would also suggest a simple penalty. If a driver is convicted of an offence during their probation period – remove their licence, so they have to sit the test again.
Or else just let them get on with it and kill themselves.
Its the poor innocent people these tearaways slaughter as they roar around the road network who I feel sorry for Grandad.
Cant we just give the little bollixes a cyanide capsule just before they purchase their first car, so much cleaner and simpler.
We’re going through this–my daughter’s learning to drive. I told her she’d be fine as long as she realised that every single other driver on the road was out to kill her, and to drive with that in mind. It seems true some days.
She drives beautifully of course…when I’m in the car with her. The other times, I try not to think too much.
Need some sulphuric acid in there as a catalyst, and best to mix it gradually in an ice bath, monitoring the temperature of the reaction chaber at all times. Very volatile and difficult to handle though, better to ue the hexamine solid fuel tabs from the camping store to make C4.
Your best posting yet. I would just add: children learn mostly by example. There is little of that on Irish roads.
Welcome, Hoor! [You don’t mind me calling you Hoor?]. I agree about the innocent victims. Maybe we should pack all the new drivers into just one county? All we need to do then is select the county! 😈
Susan – I hate to say this as it is completely against all my religions, but it is nearly always the young buck who cause the mayhem. I have yet to see a young woman in a VW Golf tearing around a bend on the wrong side of the road. Maybe I haven’t lived?
Thrifty – True. I would have mentioned that but this isn’t strictly a lesson on the manufacture of explosives. I’ll do that another time.
Caren – Is that a compliment or an insult? How much have you read? Maybe if we culled all the BMW and Volvo drivers as well?
The only thing (apart from experience) that will work is consequences. Find the right consequence and you may change the behaviour. The problem is that what will work for middle aged has beens in the RSA will have no impact on the Young Bucks (but they think that their ideas are great and are constantly surprised when these ideas have absolutely no impact). You need to talk to similar Young Bucks to figure out what will work. Something like forcing them to drive a Pink Micra??
Shane – Spot on. What boy racer has been driving at 150mph down the motorway when he suddenly thinks of that advertisement on television, and slows down? Don’t make me laugh. I love the idea of a pink Micra though. And if he is still caught offending, he gets the Pink Smart?
I agree with Caren, the kiddos learn by example. Unfortunately there’s not many good examples over here in the States either. The driving here in PA/NY/NJ is crap. You just have to teach them as best as you can. I’m not looking forward to this myself 🙂
Very definitely a compliment. How often does that happen 🙂
And Shane, you’re right, consequences work. And the more immediate the better for young people. The Pink Micra is the best idea I’ve heard yet.
Or a Pink Ford Ka. With fluffy dice and a nodding dog …..
Caren, you are spot on about the lack of a good example. It is even worse when the courts only give drink drivers a slap on the wrist or when someone who does actually kill a person due to drink or speeding escapes with a suspended sentence.
Cool! Yes, the knee jerk response to make the roads safer is a classic ‘focus group’ driven piece of PR shysterism, worthy of New Labour. Dock the pay of the gards in the immediate area where a death occurs, that’ll get them out and enforcing PDQ.
Thanks Grandad, been meaning to join in for a while but that swine Twenty did something to my server. Firstly, the idea about the pink Micra is solid gold. But let’s take it to an extreme. Make every motorist under the age of twenty five drive round in Brum:
http://www.brum.tv/
Until such time as they are deemed worthy to move up to a Trabant.
As for the the County. It has to be Dublin. Its already like a scene from Wacky Races so why change it?
Actually old people are more dangerous. At least, over here. They are immune from criticism and punishment as it is deemed politically incorrect to hit on old people.
On a regular basis you hear about some old twat confusing the brake and the accelerator and mowing down a bunch of folks at a bus stop.
Nothing gets done. Awww,shucks,not her fault, the old dear. So, how about some balance GRANDAD ?
Funny story about a friend of mine in Ireland… One night him and a few friends went out drinking. On the way home they missed their turn on the roundabout, so of course the drunken solution was to stop and back up to the turn. After slamming into the car behind them, the police were called… Once the police arrived an officer walked up to his car and says, “You boys can go home. The people behind you have been drinking and are claiming that you backed into them.”
Caren – Compliments don’t happen here very often. In fact they are so rare, I get very suspicious. Thank you 🙂
Hoor – What is Twenty doing messing around with servers? That’s like giving a five year old access to a nuclear weapon – you get what you deserve. You’re more than welcome here anyway, and I promise not to touch your equipment.
TT – Giving out AGAIN? I am writing about our precious authorities here and their “answer” to our road carnage, not doing a youth/oldie comparison. How about we both enter the Indianapolis 500????
Welcome Daniel! That is so crazy it just has to be true! And we all know that the car with its nose embedded in another car’s arse is at fault? 😉
Great post Grandad. I have to admit I don’t know the current stats on the Irish boy racer stuff v man racer/girl racer/intoxication issues (for all)… so not qualified to dispute the assumptions. But, I do wonder about the prevalence and topical nature of the issue. I suspect much has to do with the massive increase of car ownership per head of population. which is huge. A victim of our success. I was the first to own a car in my peer group at 18 (not out of wealth but out of personal priority at the time) and there was only ever of a slim chance of anyone of my peers aspiring to such a height! Now, a car is no more the status symbol – 2 weeks work on a building site buys a souped up machine. Those building sites became as disposal as the machines they bought. My view is the recession will do away with the disposal/reckless nature of wealth = cars = attitude. My guess is that road deaths will decrease with the coinciding with the scarcity of resources so I advocate the abolision of the RSA. If we don’t abolish them they will claim the credit.
I never had a professional driving lesson in my life. I failed my first test for cutting out twice during a three point turn. I wasn’t used to the car.
I passed second time with only one minor fault.
It’s down to each individual to take responsibility. When we have agencies like the RSA it gives people the mentality that someone else will take care of the problems.
When I first moved here, I couldn’t believe that learner drivers can drive alone without a qualified person (it’s something about 2nd and 3rd provisional licences isn’t it? I don’t really understand).
Oh, and by the way, I just read your comment about my compliment to Kirk. You know I find you devilishly handsome too. It’s the beard.
Milton & Maxi – I have just written to the RSA suggestion line and suggested they disband. Best idea yet [apart from the Pink Metro].
E Mum – At one stage they reckoned that something like 300,000 drivers didn’t have full licences. Crazy. So you have a beard fetish, huh? Hmmmmm.
I think some blame should be apportioned to the actual roads too. We have the only roads in the world that veer off at right angles with a roadsign 20 yards either side of the bend giving a 100km per hour speed limit. There’s just no rhyme nor reason to any of it.
Point of Information. Learner motorcyclists do have to have their machines restricted for 2 years after they pass their test, so I don’t see why we couldn’t do the same for the cars. Your probabtion period penatly is a good idea too. Simple and easy to enforce.
Judging by your Christmas road toll which was amazingly high considering your population, something needs to be done. We have all those restrictions in place here for provisionally licensed drivers. It seems to be cutting the carnage a little but basically, if parents are shit drivers, then so will the kids be. Having a minor crash that was not his fault, has given my son great respect for the road although it was an expensive lesson to learn . . the accident was however caused by a provisional driver cutting in on the car, two cars in front of him and causing a pile up . . because the P plater wasn’t involved in the accident, he scooted away scot free!
They never get it right anyway and the people they employ to ‘police’ drivers are all manic bullies – they only pick on the easy meat – they don’t like going for the real troublemakers – sorry, ranting today….