Comments on: Things that make me go… Aaaaahhhh!!! http://www.jbwan.com/2006/10/26/things-that-make-me-go-aaaaahhhh/ Jonathan Brazil's view of the world Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:41:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Paul http://www.jbwan.com/2006/10/26/things-that-make-me-go-aaaaahhhh/comment-page-1/#comment-39 Paul Sun, 26 Nov 2006 01:20:47 +0000 http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2006/10/26/things-that-make-me-go-aaaaahhhh/#comment-39 I agree with most of what you have to say on the subject of young drivers as scapegoats. As a used to be young Irish male driver who luckily learned in the UK + did all my early driving there, I dont have the blinkered views that seem to affect an ungodly percentage of driver here. Driving here is poor, right across the board, from the 70 yr olds who never heard of a test, to the 50 yr olds who got their "amnesty" licences to the 17 yr olds with brand new Peugout 205s but but no licence (provisional means no licence) from the engineers who cant figure out how to traffic light or signpost correctly to the politicians whose road safety policies appear to be drawn up on beer mats. It is a fact that young male drivers are statistically a higher risk, that is the same across the world, but only in Ireland is it used as a scapegoat to hide the fact that our more mature drivers are little better than inexperienced drivers themselves with a huge range of bad habits that would not be acceptable in any other first world country. There is a world of differnce between the average Irish driver and the average British driver. Most British drivers are aghast and bemused when they hear or see what goes on over here on our roads. There is no pride in motoring here. A few examples are needed to illustrate - they all come from my under 25yr old mates - The most important thing to do after leaving school is pass your driving test. If you reach 19 without it, you are a bit old. While I have been driven by friends on motorways in excess of 125mph, these same friends would take the piss out you if you didnt stop exactly at the stop line for a red light or parked more than an inch from the kerb and absolutely would not allow us unlicenced paddies drive unaccompanied while learning. SPEED is not the issue, bad driving is the issue, young or old. Since returning to the oulde sod, I drive alot slower here yet I feel one tenth as safe. Dont get me wrong, I love to drive fairly quickly but unlike in the UK that is not possible here due to the vast quantity of eejits young and old on our roads. I could go on and on but from experience I have found that the wearing of blinkers leaves people easy to antagonise or just switch off - much easier to blame young fellows and mantra SPEED SPEED and let that be an end to it, shure it'll sort itself oout when we get speed cameras. Well damn ye eejits out there who are about to foist cameras on the rest of us cos ye cant be bothered to learn properly or use common sense on the road, when all we want to do is get from a to b in reasonable safety at reasonable speed. And a safe speed isnt always that decided by some county council so that their land can be rezoned easier for development or because some councillor recited his speed mantra over his allowable 3 o 4 pints after the meeting before driving slowly and carefully home. Speed is way down the list of causes of accidents. Drink, bad/careless driving and fatigue are the main causes of accidents. Getting back to that fatigue issue you also mentioned, dont understimate the role of fatigue in the life of a young driver, I have experienced it alot more when younger (luckily without too serious consequences) but between sports, partying and driving as a young person you are more likely to be mixing all 3 so on a wet motorway with 100 miles to go drowsiness hits hard and fast without warning. Driving licences are meaningless here, you drive with full or provo, no difference, why bother. Parents with no formal qualifications themselves "teach" their kids to "drive". During the month of either July or August (cant remember ask RTE for the list again) not one person under 25 died on our roads. No one commented on this, perhaps they were all in Ibiza. I was bemused a few weeks ago when Mornig Ireland interviewed 2 so called boy racers after a paricularly bad weekend, and one of them said he had done the Advanced drivers test. He was probably more qualified to drive than any of the people interviewing him but nobody commented, they were just aghast at this young fella they trotted out to illustrate what we should be looking out foron our roads, trying to make a pariah of someone who had gone out of his way to get trained over and above the measly Irish licence so he cold more safely enjoy a more powerful car. The real pariahs are those who never did a test, who pass on their "skills" and attitudes to their kids and then wonder why the kid they let out one night in the Mondeo or 318i comes home in a much smaller box. Motoring should be a joy, but I fear in Ireland it never will realise that potential. Once we have widespread private cameras, that will be the end of it for your normal motorist. They wont make people better drivers, just slower paranoid rubberenecked ones. And in case you havent realised it by by now I am angry, better to get angry now than ... Apart from the obvious why am I angry. Well in 7 yrs of UK driving as a young riskier driver, driving the length of England and Scotland for work and leisure my car was never hit, I was was never hit, my bike was never hit. I never witnessed a serious accident, rarely even saw anything blatantly stupid on the roads there. I regularly drove at 90 on motorways and dual carrigeways and if you are not driving dangerously it is rarely an issue with the police. I got one speeding ticket in the middle of the night when I was the only person to be caught. Relatively speaking I was the Since returning here I have had 2 cars written off, one by a drunken driver (my car was parked up) once by a sleepy truckdriver rere-ending me. My current car has been hit several times including by a bb gun and 2 drunken guys beaten on my car by bouncers, and an unmarked garda car. My wife has been knocked off her bike by a top of the range Merc breaking a red light, Ive been taken off my bike by a lunatic taxi driver, I have been witness to several (some serious) accidents, reported many drunk drivers and just today I saw for the second time this year what I thought was a once in a lifetime experience a woman driving across OConnell bridge on the wrong side. I know of friends seriously injured by drunken drivers and a young man who died asleep at the wheel And the one that stays with me the most clearly from when I was a kid - a toddler bounced off the front of a car (but luckily not seriously injured). And that driver wasnt going fast - just not paying attention. Now do you question my right to be angry. I agree with most of what you have to say on the subject of young drivers as scapegoats. As a used to be young Irish male driver who luckily learned in the UK + did all my early driving there, I dont have the blinkered views that seem to affect an ungodly percentage of driver here.
Driving here is poor, right across the board, from the 70 yr olds who never heard of a test, to the 50 yr olds who got their “amnesty” licences to the 17 yr olds with brand new Peugout 205s but but no licence (provisional means no licence) from the engineers who cant figure out how to traffic light or signpost correctly to the politicians whose road safety policies appear to be drawn up on beer mats.
It is a fact that young male drivers are statistically a higher risk, that is the same across the world, but only in Ireland is it used as a scapegoat to hide the fact that our more mature drivers are little better than inexperienced drivers themselves with a huge range of bad habits that would not be acceptable in any other first world country. There is a world of differnce between the average Irish driver and the average British driver. Most British drivers are aghast and bemused when they hear or see what goes on over here on our roads. There is no pride in motoring here.
A few examples are needed to illustrate – they all come from my under 25yr old mates – The most important thing to do after leaving school is pass your driving test. If you reach 19 without it, you are a bit old. While I have been driven by friends on motorways in excess of 125mph, these same friends would take the piss out you if you didnt stop exactly at the stop line for a red light or parked more than an inch from the kerb and absolutely would not allow us unlicenced paddies drive unaccompanied while learning.
SPEED is not the issue, bad driving is the issue, young or old. Since returning to the oulde sod, I drive alot slower here yet I feel one tenth as safe. Dont get me wrong, I love to drive fairly quickly but unlike in the UK that is not possible here due to the vast quantity of eejits young and old on our roads. I could go on and on but from experience I have found that the wearing of blinkers leaves people easy to antagonise or just switch off – much easier to blame young fellows and mantra SPEED SPEED and let that be an end to it, shure it’ll sort itself oout when we get speed cameras. Well damn ye eejits out there who are about to foist cameras on the rest of us cos ye cant be bothered to learn properly or use common sense on the road, when all we want to do is get from a to b in reasonable safety at reasonable speed. And a safe speed isnt always that decided by some county council so that their land can be rezoned easier for development or because some councillor recited his speed mantra over his allowable 3 o 4 pints after the meeting before driving slowly and carefully home. Speed is way down the list of causes of accidents. Drink, bad/careless driving and fatigue are the main causes of accidents.
Getting back to that fatigue issue you also mentioned, dont understimate the role of fatigue in the life of a young driver, I have experienced it alot more when younger (luckily without too serious consequences) but between sports, partying and driving as a young person you are more likely to be mixing all 3 so on a wet motorway with 100 miles to go drowsiness hits hard and fast without warning.

Driving licences are meaningless here, you drive with full or provo, no difference, why bother.
Parents with no formal qualifications themselves “teach” their kids to “drive”.
During the month of either July or August (cant remember ask RTE for the list again) not one person under 25 died on our roads. No one commented on this, perhaps they were all in Ibiza.
I was bemused a few weeks ago when Mornig Ireland interviewed 2 so called boy racers after a paricularly bad weekend, and one of them said he had done the Advanced drivers test. He was probably more qualified to drive than any of the people interviewing him but nobody commented, they were just aghast at this young fella they trotted out to illustrate what we should be looking out foron our roads, trying to make a pariah of someone who had gone out of his way to get trained over and above the measly Irish licence so he cold more safely enjoy a more powerful car. The real pariahs are those who never did a test, who pass on their “skills” and attitudes to their kids and then wonder why the kid they let out one night in the Mondeo or 318i comes home in a much smaller box.

Motoring should be a joy, but I fear in Ireland it never will realise that potential. Once we have widespread private cameras, that will be the end of it for your normal motorist. They wont make people better drivers, just slower paranoid rubberenecked ones.

And in case you havent realised it by by now I am angry, better to get angry now than …
Apart from the obvious why am I angry. Well in 7 yrs of UK driving as a young riskier driver, driving the length of England and Scotland for work and leisure my car was never hit, I was was never hit, my bike was never hit. I never witnessed a serious accident, rarely even saw anything blatantly stupid on the roads there. I regularly drove at 90 on motorways and dual carrigeways and if you are not driving dangerously it is rarely an issue with the police. I got one speeding ticket in the middle of the night when I was the only person to be caught. Relatively speaking I was the
Since returning here I have had 2 cars written off, one by a drunken driver (my car was parked up) once by a sleepy truckdriver rere-ending me. My current car has been hit several times including by a bb gun and 2 drunken guys beaten on my car by bouncers, and an unmarked garda car. My wife has been knocked off her bike by a top of the range Merc breaking a red light, Ive been taken off my bike by a lunatic taxi driver, I have been witness to several (some serious) accidents, reported many drunk drivers and just today I saw for the second time this year what I thought was a once in a lifetime experience a woman driving across OConnell bridge on the wrong side. I know of friends seriously injured by drunken drivers and a young man who died asleep at the wheel
And the one that stays with me the most clearly from when I was a kid – a toddler bounced off the front of a car (but luckily not seriously injured). And that driver wasnt going fast – just not paying attention.
Now do you question my right to be angry.

]]> By: Brian W http://www.jbwan.com/2006/10/26/things-that-make-me-go-aaaaahhhh/comment-page-1/#comment-38 Brian W Thu, 02 Nov 2006 10:29:38 +0000 http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2006/10/26/things-that-make-me-go-aaaaahhhh/#comment-38 Wow, nice work. Spotted this today though: <a href="http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1082238&issue_id=10075" rel="nofollow">http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1082238&issue_id=10075</a> (registration required, or bugmenot.com) '''Mr Conlon went on to highlight the dangers posed by computer driving games. "Young people think they are learning how to drive by playing video games. These games encourage them to drive at highly excessive speeds and in a daredevil manner.''' and of course, Grand Theft Auto gets a mention too. Wow, nice work.

Spotted this today though: http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1082238&issue_id=10075
(registration required, or bugmenot.com)

”’Mr Conlon went on to highlight the dangers posed by computer driving games. “Young people think they are learning how to drive by playing video games. These games encourage them to drive at highly excessive speeds and in a daredevil manner.”’

and of course, Grand Theft Auto gets a mention too.

]]> By: Podcasting in Ireland http://www.jbwan.com/2006/10/26/things-that-make-me-go-aaaaahhhh/comment-page-1/#comment-40 Podcasting in Ireland Fri, 27 Oct 2006 10:31:39 +0000 http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2006/10/26/things-that-make-me-go-aaaaahhhh/#comment-40 <strong>Road Safety Mash-up for Conn</strong> After reading a little from Damien Blake and Jonathan Brazil, we start talking about road safety, take a call from Simon McGarr about viral videos, dissect a mash-up from Conn O Muineachain while trying to say his name, listen to another lesson on how ... Road Safety Mash-up for Conn

After reading a little from Damien Blake and Jonathan Brazil, we start talking about road safety, take a call from Simon McGarr about viral videos, dissect a mash-up from Conn O Muineachain while trying to say his name, listen to another lesson on how …

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