BBC Radio Northampton

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(Note: The presenter goes on for 4 minutes, introducing the topic before the interview itself starts)

Making no distinction between hand-held and hands-free usage of mobile phones, Noel Brett of the RSA said that “using a mobile phone while driving distracts the driver, impairs their control of the vehicle and reduces their awareness of what is happening around them.”

Motorists caught holding a mobile phone to their heads while driving face fines of up to €2,000 and 4 penalty points on their license. The organisation is now running a new campaign, including a 30 second radio advertisement, encouraging people not to use their mobile phones AT ALL (including via bluetooth headsets and speakers) while driving suggesting you “switch off before you drive off” – and if you really need to make a call, pull over and switch it back on.

The full press release can be seen via the RSA web site, here – and their leaflet “Mobile Phones & Driving” can be obtained (in PDF format) here.

Just a thought though – aren’t sat navs (GPS systems) just as distracting as phones with bluetooth – or perhaps even more so, as you actually have to LOOK away from the windscreen and the road ahead to use it?

The programme, “Late & Live” will have, among the topics tackled, the issue of young drivers and “boy racers” in Northern Ireland.

I’ve also been asked to find out if there are any ShiteDrivers.com contributors or readers who feel they could add something to this debate and would like to take part in it. If there are, please send an email to me at Admin@ShiteDrivers.com (as soon as possible) letting me know and I’ll put you in touch with the programme producers.

See comments for more info on this.

Niall O’Keeffe

We do not currently have a recording of this interview, but if we get one, it will be put onto the Media page with the others.

The topic is “How Irish people can improve their driving”, and the main question Niall will be answering is “what are the common mistakes and deeply engrained bad driving habits in Ireland and why do you think it is?”.

This is where you, the readers of this site, could be very helpful! If there’s anything you would like to hear raised during this interview, post a comment here or send an email now!

● Best Blog Post – for “RSA – They talk the talk but do they walk the streets?” by Jim Travers
● Best Blog
● Best Group Blog
● Best Newcomer

Wow…!

Thanks to all who nominated us… here’s hoping that the site (or Jim’s article!) goes from being in the current “long” lists to actually being shortlisted for an award. Keep an eye on shitedrivers.com and on www.awards.ie/blogawards/ for more!

Courtesy: Road Safety Authority

Now there are good Irish jokes floating around and then there are Irish jokes that make all other Irish jokes look that little bit less rediculous. The second provisional licence joke is but one joke that must have been thought up by the men in black over a good political drinking session that ended with the theme song from Bear in the Big Blue House being sung by all. How can anybody justify the logic behind telling someone that you cannot drive on the road unless your are accompanied by a full licence holder and then in the next breath say it’s alright to drive alone on a second licence. To add greater insult and blatant stupidity to the provisional licence scandal, on your third licence you are not allowed to drive unless you are accompanied once again by a full licence holder. Now I thought the idea of practice makes perfect means that the more one is on the road the greater the chances of that individual becoming a competent and experienced driver. What the current provisional licencing system tells me is that on the first licence you are not compentent to drive alone, on the second licence you suddenly become competent, while on your third and subsequent licences you suddenly go back to becoming incompetent.

Now this really boggles the mind when trying to understand as to why enormous emphasis is constantly placed on the causes of road fatalities, and here we have a regulation that eminates from the highest of authority, is flawed to such an extent that it makes the process of saving lives through road safety iniatives a complete farce and a joke. Once again the thoughts of commerce comes into one’s mind as provisional driving licence holders are encourage to purchase vehicles, tax and insure the same vehicles and then drive those vehicles despite the fact that they are toying with a licence that operates on the same principals as childrens play money. Insurance companies, government agencies and local authorities openly encourage inexperienced drivers to drive motor vehicles on the road, purely because its revenue into the accounts of the same insurance companies and a tidy earner for the state and its local authorities.

I have said it before and I will say it again, the Gardai are being used as a political football in the enforcement of regulations that are ill-concieved and badly thought out and to which make the Gardai look like a local branch of the political establishment. Mothers collect their children in 4X4 vehicles they are unable to reverse if they are caught in a sticky situation. Young 19 to 24 year old adults drive sports cars without any real comprehension of the handling, brakeing and power charasiticics of the vehicle, as insurance companies line up to make the monthly debits from their bank accounts and the state sends out the Gardai to make sure they have paid their road tax. Gay Byrne waffles on about all our wrongs, but makes no remarks about the shortcoming of the same authorities who consistently get their regulations wrong and who pay absolutrely no attention to inappropriate road signs on many of our roads, bad lighting at many accident blackspots and the problem of the taxi industry that nobody is willing and prepared to tackle as an ongoing problem of bad driving. Taxi’s may not directly kill people, but the standards of driving by the vast majority of members in that industry, directly contribute to bad driving practices by other road users and therefore directly contribute as a secondary sourse for road accidents.The Road Safety Authority is handpicking situations that provide a maximum revenue return for the state by using the Gardai to enforce secondary regulations that in reality would be far better enforced if the root cause of the problems were addressed as their primary priority over petty speeding checks on roads that have the capability of handling 747Jumbo jets. Last Saturday night I stood with my bicycle at the junction of Stephens Green and Leeson Street and watched wave after wave of taxi’s driving up the contra-flow bus lane without one Garda being present for the duration of my observations. Now these guys have PSV driving licences, are supposed to comply with the rules of the road as PSV operators but can be seen night after night violating all regulations with total immunity from prosecution basically because the interest of commerce takes presidence over the enforcement of road safety regulations and the saving of lives.

There are thousand of provisional licence drivers out there who due to the financial investment they have placed in purchasing a motor vehicle, now find themselves driving the same vehicles because they have accustomised themselves to driving alone on their second licence.As I write this article an advertisement sponsored by the RSA and AXA that says ‘The faster the speed the bigger the mess’, suddenly appeared on the television. Ah great, the RSA is screaming about speed while at the same time provisional licence holders are jumping from your not, you are, and back again to your not authourised to drive on the road. We now have a wig wam situation where the driver testing centres cannot handle the influx of applications for driving tests; provisional driver licence holders are still waiting weeks and months for a test while the RSA clatters-on about striking these drivers off the road in one foul swoop. Listen Gaybo, this Mickey mouse state and its political hoo-haas caused the problem by their lack of leadership and foresight at the consequences their actions of handing out full driving licences to provisional drivers without having to take a test would cause and then, having failed to learn form their blatant mistakes then went along to hand out provisional driving licences to everybody and anybody who wanted to get onto the road, purely because the state was reaping in the money from duties and taxes on motor vehicles, fuels and spare parts sold by motor dealers and motor factors.

Every death is a direct result of a political incompetence that has led to the situations we see on our roads today. W cannot blame provisional drivers (although the emphasis on driver responsibility is forcibly rammed down our necks) , nor can we blame full licence holders as they have been conditioned over many years to driving in a manner that seen the state turn a blind eye to what was going on around it. We cannot blame the Gardai for the ongoing rise in road fatalities, although when a finger needs to be pointed they seem to be in direct line for criticism from those who duck and dive away from their own responsibilities. The Gardai are obliged to mount road checks on roads they themselves know Sterling Moss would have no problem driving under any road conditions or circumstances.

It’s as simple as this; let’s go back to basics, let us look at all the other violations of road safety regulations and let us find a better way in which to enforce those regulations. The idea of Gardai in great numbers patrolling our streets is just a plaster on a wound that requires stitches. Let us start enforcing regulations that govern the use bicycles including a regulation that addresses J walking by pedestrians.

Finally, to add insult to injury, our old friend Gaybo comes out and says in response to a question on the lowering of the alcohol limits when driving, said; “Existing limits should be enforced properly”. Talking about kicking the Gardai in the teeth should we see any further rise in road fatalities. It’s not our problem, it’s the bloody guards who won’t do their job. The veteran broadcaster is like a Ever-Ready battery, low in power, is second best to a Duracell and is promoted and maintained by the use of a brand image and nothing really much beyond that. You can give the boys a job but can the boys do the job? To date the wind is blowing from the lower orifice with nothing that indicates life noticeably present from the other end.

As we move into the new year I wonder, will the RSA leave resolution of the learner driver licence debacle until the very last minute, and will the RSA then turn to the Gardai and expect them to do their dirty work in enforcing the regulations. Will these actions in turn drive a greater wedge between the good community relations the Gardai have built up with the general public and therefore further encourage a ‘them and us’ mentality among ordinary law abiding citizens? It’s time the RSA stopped picking their noses and got down to the real causes of road fatalities, which seem to indicate a real problem with the overall driving standards of motorists rather than specific problems such as speeding. It’s time for the RSA to take on the local authorities with their inconsistencies in the setting speed limits and it’s time to stop blaming road users for a problem that was encouraged and swept under the carpet until the need to secure alternative revenue was suddenly required due to falling revenues from other sources.

Speed kills, at 5 KPh speed kills, so what is all the hype about speed, as if speed was the only contributing factor that needs to be addressed in order to resolve the problem of road fatalities? Speed is most certainly a contributing factor, but it is not the main factor. A learner driver driving in an unacceptable manner at 20 KPh is as dangerous as another motorist driving on a motorway 20 KPH above the speed limit. A driver with a full licence who drives (not speeds) through a red traffic light is more dangerous than a learner driver crawling along the road and holding up the traffic. A taxi that stops in the middle of Westmoreland Street in order to secure a fare, as traffic passes on either side, is as dangerous as the taxi driver who stops at a bus stop thereby causing elderly people to struggle in order to board or disembark the bus because the driver cannot pull into the stop and the Gardai pass by. Funny old Celtic Tiger, money out strips the importance and value of life.

The more exposure this web site gets, the better, as the more people that read it and post articles on it, the larger the audience we’ll be sending out our message to – the message of promoting good driving by exposing (and occasionally making fun of) bad driving!

To vote for us in the Irish Blog Awards, go here, and fill in the form. Many thanks…

There will be a discussion on motoring, including topics on foreign drivers, the penalty points system and this very web site on the Moncrieff programme on Newstalk 106-108 today at 2pm.

I should be on it talking to Seán about ShiteDrivers.com at about 2.20pm. You can tune in live via the Web here or between 106 and 108FM (Ireland only).

EDIT: I won’t now be on the show. They’re talking to someone from AA roadwatch instead.

Also… today, I’ll be speaking on The Last Word (at about 4.30pm) on 100-102 Today FM about taxis and what ShiteDrivers.com’s users think of them. Also speaking at the same time will be Tommy Gorman of the National Taxi Drivers Union.

I know it’s short notice but if anyone has anything they’d like me to say or ask while on the Last Word, post a comment here now!

Here’s the discussion. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a word in once Tommy Gorman started speaking. Feel free to comment:-

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