Back in October, after a series of high profile car crashes which cost people their lives, the hand wringing in the media was something to behold. All kinds of measures were called for to cut down on the deaths on our roads, the whole thing was used as a political opportunity by some people who sought to blame the government. Now, the government are responsible for a lot of things but this really wasn’t something you could pin on them. My point at the time was that because of human stupidity travelling on the roads was always going to cause a number of deaths each year and no amount of emergency legislation, extra lessons for young drivers, restrictions on the speed of cars etc was going to make any difference. The problem is that people are stupid, impatient and stupid. Did I... Similar posts

In her Sunday Times column Sarah Carey revisits the issue of coverage of the Monaghan car crash of last October. She starts off by talking about the lack of coverage that inquests get as compared to the incidents themselves. Strange thing I had posted specifically on the issue of the lack of coverage of inquests last October as part of Damien Blakes efforts to get something together under the technorati label of roadsafetyblog. And I'd commented on the same specific subject in Sarah's own post which she posted a week later on the topic back in November. Now, it's not plagiarism by any means but I've been getting a little more thin skinned of late when folks repeat things I've said or posted whether on the blog or elsewhere as if it was an idea that had popped fully formed into their... Similar posts

When I posted on this originally it caused a row. I got emails from some of the relatives outraged that there was such widespread speculation that driver error was the cause of the crash. The speculation’s over now. These guys were playing chicken. Before I go further, I want to say something to any people from Monaghan or connected with the families: you are reading this today because you came looking for it. You logged on to your computers and you knocked on my door and said “Sarah, what do you think of the inquest?” You haven’t walked into a shop and accidentally seen headlines. You haven’t switched on your radio to hear commentators holding forth. You want to know what I think. So you don’t have the right to email me and tell me that I have no... Similar posts

roadsafetyblogroad accidents. In fact there are no road accidents at all, the Gardai now prefer to call them 'incidents' as it is not a good idea to prejudge whether there was in reality anything accidental about what has occurred.If you drive at 100kph on a 50 kph zone and hit a wall, that isn't an accident at all but might be more correctly termed negligence. We can't sue people for causing their own deaths and we rightly do not have crime of suicide anymore. And no it couldn’t have happened to anyone, it could only happen to someone who was driving at such speed in those conditions.The media with their liking for the dramatic love to show us the scene and talk about the terribleness of the loss of life involved and how sad everyone in the locality is. What the meeja utterly fail to... Similar posts