Over to you, RSA
There is a happy little crew here in Ireland who call themselves the Road Safety Authority.
They are obsessed with the idea of eliminating all road deaths in Ireland. I have no theoretical objection to this objective as it does somewhat fill their remit.
Where I do have a problem with the RSA is their methods. My principal objection is their obsession with speed. To listen to them, all accidents are caused by speeding with no other factors involved whatsoever. They spend vast sums advertising stuff on television which frankly is of little use. Who thinks of television adverts when they are behind the wheel? They also have the meeja involved so that every single accident gets headlines in the news. Every day we are told of some accident and how many were killed or injured, but of course we are never told the cause, the implication being that it was speed.
One of their latest greatest brainfarts is to reduce speed limits everywhere. I very much doubt this will have any effect on death rates. Just as an aside, the photo in the article I linked to says a lot – a speed trap on a wide, well surfaced road with little traffic thereby milking us of more cash?
There has been a spate of accidents in the last while and a lot seem to have factors in common. They seem to involve young drivers with a car full of young passengers who end up in a single vehicle crash. Yes, they probably were speeding, but I would bet the house that the main causes were bravado and sheer lack of experience.
Now another set of figures are in the headlines.
I might add that driver testing is also part of the RSA’s remit.
So there are 74,500 people driving on provisional licenses? I would wager that the vast majority of those don’t bother with accompanying drivers and happily tread the tarmac as if they had been driving for years. Add into that mix the number who haven’t bothered with a license at all? While we are at it, let’s add in all the disqualified drivers who are still happily ignoring the reason they were disqualified in the first place? We are into significant numbers here. I’m not saying that this coterie are therefore the cause of accidents, but I would wager they are responsible for a lot?
But of course speed limits will solve everything!
One of my first jobs was working in a petrol station, back before self-service. Theoretically I was too young to serve, but nobody seemed that bothered.
Another petrol pump attendant was Maureen. She was 40-ish and Liverpool-Irish. She drove a Triumph Herald. But she didn’t have a licence, and she had never had one – not even provisional. She had been driving over twenty years and never had an accident. And she had never been caught for speeding or any traffic offence. Oh she didn’t have any insurance either!
On the other hand, I got a provisional licence at 17, passed the test three weeks later, and I had seven accidents in my first year – writing off two cars – and got done for 60 mph in a 30 mph zone.
My point is that driving lessons (I had eight including the test), driving tests and licences don’t necessarily make for safe drivers. Oh, I did improve!
I went on to a career in and around the motor trade, and I can tell, having been out to many wrecks, that speed is not the single factor in crashes. Usually it’s eejit drivers.
Looking at the picture in the article, we have the same speed vans here. Last time I nearly got caught was on an almost identical road in Wales with a 50 mph limit (80Ks). I came round a corner at near 70 mph and saw the van in the far distance. I slammed on my brakes and cruised past it at 30!!!
Of course passing a driving test guarantees little. I passed my test back in ’72 [in the middle of a thunderstarm while I had the flu] and have lost count of the number of accidents I have had. in my defense, Very few of them were my fault and only one could have involved speed and even in that was proven in court to be the other driver’s fault.
I might add that I have every sympathy with learners doing [illegal] solo driving as public transport here in Ireland is a very sad joke.
I agree with this. I have been nodding at your words.
If anything the slower speed limits will cause more accidents, people will be overtaking on narrow lanes, because 60kmph feels like crawling along.
I’ve seen two bright yellow speed cameras in recent weeks, one in Donegal, and one in Mayo.
I’ve also seen two eejit drivers, both pulled out right in front of me. One had a litre of milk on her car bonnet…..
Welcome back Val! 😀
There is also the argument that drivers should keep their attention on the road ahead and not on the speedometer. Sadly, our roads are crowded with eejit drivers, whether delivering milk or not.
1/3 of fatal accidents are caused by excessive speed, so what are they doing about the other 2/3 , a lot of which are down to being inattentive. Oh and pissed pedestrians count in the statistics against drivers as well, if the accident is fatal.
I would even question whether a third are caused by excessive speed. Maybe speed is a factor but rarely a cause. Some kid who wraps himself around a tree is more likely to be unaware of the road conditions or even layout so is just a victim of inexperience. An experienced driver would be aware of the potential situation before it happens?
Hardly any accidents are caused by simply exceeding a speed-limit, almost all accidents are caused by inappropriate driving which may, sometimes, involve speeds in excess of the vehicle or driver’s capability in the road conditions pertaining at the time.
Where heavy speed surveillance is carried out (e.g. cameras etc), it has the effect of distracting the driver from concentrating on the road-conditions, watching the speedo instead, just like speed-humps cause the driver to focus on the lumpy tarmac, rather than that school entrance or hazardous junction. And it’s all in the interests of road safety, apparently.
I’d suggest it’s more about the grants/careers/pensions of those who bang the fact-free drum against motorists at every opportunity.
Dammit! I should have pointed all my replies to this one. You have summed my points perfectly.
My local council is in the process of imposing a 20 mph speed limit in my village, it’s currently 30 mph. The “correct” speed for the roads is somewhere between 20 and 30 mph, depending on the time of day etc. They surveyed the traffic and found the average speed was about 25 mph. They surveyed the residents I don’t know what other people told them but I told them it was a silly idea, some people will stick to the limit, some people will continue driving safely at 25 mph and a few of those people will be penalised when the police finally get around to doing a speed check for an hour or so. The two people (or possibly it’s the same person) with the obnoxiously loud car and motorbike will probably not be caught and will continue to drive at stupid, already illegal, speeds.
In my opinion, it’s a waste of effort and a waste of my council tax money.
They are playing hard ans fast with the 20mph limit here – for us it’s 30kmph. At some stage they imposed it on my village though it’s very badly signposted. There is no big 30 sign that I have seen, a few of the mini “repeater” ones. My new car has a weird ability to read speed signs so there is always a little display on the dash. I noticed yesterday that it said 30 all the way to the village, whereas it said 50 in the way back. I might add that the only vehicles that drive at speed though the village are heavy lorries, motorbikes and buses. The 50 limit outside the village itself is just plain daft as it’s a straight clear rural road with very few entrances.
While touring the East coast of Australia, some years ago, I noticed the main, dual carriage, highways had speed limits of 50 or 55 mph, and the traffic accident rates were horrendous. This was possibly due to very strict speed enforcement, so everyone would be travelling down a long,straight road, at the same speed, in the inside lane. Even with air conditioning, radios or CDs, it was very boring, and not unusual to see a vehicle suddenly veer to one side,either into the outside lane,or off the road itself, probably due to lose of concentration or the driver falling asleep. So, it may not have been the speed that caused lots of accidents, but the speed restrictions.
In the UK, nearly everyone obeys these awful 20mph zones, apart from the L plated food delivery moped riders, who overtake you on either side of your car and go zooming off into the distance, apparently, without any reaction from Police.
Dual carriageways with 55mph limits are just pointless and I would maintain are dangerous. Why bother improving a road if you are going to restrict its use?
They tried the same thing over here in the States awhile back. Actually quite awhile back but I digress.
The powers that be decided to lower highway speeds to 55 MPH down from 60 to 70 MPH depending on the State. All in the name of saving gas and, apparently, lives. Accidents went way up usually due to those moronic drivers who drove 55 MPH just to prove a point when all the other drivers were still doing 65 MPH. Sometimes in the fast lane. Fuel consumption also went up due to the fact that engines back then reached their peak efficiency when the vehicle was tooling along 65 MPH.
Now it’s back to more reasonable speeds right when I can no longer drive. Safely that is.