Re: Learner Drivers

at 3pm yesterday the gardai parked a gatso van on the dundalk inner relief road ( by - pass to you and me) in a 50kph zone where the most you could normally do anyway would be 60kph if, and its a big if, you got a clear stretch of road. the van was parked on the footpath between the entrance to the coes road ( left hand side ) and the next turn in. van was parked so far in on the ditch that the only intention was to catch anyone speeding and definitely not deterrance. under normal circumstances they should have been facing a fine for illegal parking on a footpath but they are above that. didnt catch me as I was around the 50 limit anyway and was in the middle of a group of other traffic doing the same speed but I think it was out of order. nobody has been killed on this stretch of road for over 10 years and then it was a drunken driver involved. also the MI is now open taking most ( but not all ) the heavy trucks off this particular stretch of road. just an exercise in revenue gathering. have never seen it parked at night though I have seen it on the opposite side of the road tracking south moving traffic and also over the 'cuchulainn:)' bridge in the 60kpm (100m of roadway approx ) metre zone , again with its rear, and camera, facing the traffic coming out of the 100kph zone from the northern direction.
 
1 in 4 cars with L plate and a single driver
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one of those could well be me....I'm not going to remove the L plates every time my daughter and I swap over driving!

And speaking of which, it's quite incredible the agressive behaviour of other drivers on the road when they see a small car w. L plates...I've been tail-gated, cut-up, beeped and 'fingered' in the last few days.

Never happened in my own car...
 
cagney said:
Did any one see what said in newspaper tonight?


Learner drivers and those just qualified will be automatically banned from driving if they get six penalty points instead of the normal 12 points. Drivers who pass the test face the six point ban for a further two years.
* L-drivers will not be Etc Etc Etc
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R plates, stopping L drivers from learning banning them from N roads This post will be deleted if not edited immediately when was there a COO? Who is our dictator now? or have I been asleep and missed the take over, bringing in laws like this, why don't we put them in R Blocks (H Blocks) or something we will be told next,
We hear about black spots, so go fix them and do away with the black spots Frustrated drivers been held up due to slow traffic Fine the slow driver, Pedestrian hit, €50 fine if caught in dark without an arm band, Boy racers with souped up Clio's there are only Cleo's with wide wheels and skirts still only a 1.1, a standard Clio would leave it sitting I don't know the answer but with laws like this why did so many die to get rid of Hitler
 
i see that next year a few additions are to be added to the theory test in the UK, 15 new eco questions are being added and at same time rising the cost by £7 to£28.50
 
Its my belief that its not all about provisional/full licence etc but about enforcement as has been stated by a huge % of this thread. Anyone who drives around this country on a regular basis will see that your odds of being caught for stupid driving of whatever nature, are incredibly slim. People will NOT take responsibility for their actions - that is a fact and has been proven over and over again - so that in my opinion is a wasted call. Hit people where it hurts - fines/bans etc - and do it by enforcement. Put those cops on the roads where the accidents happen. This is not rocket science. This government has proven time and again that they cannot sort this problem when really its not that complex. As mentioned above, how many L drivers do you see everyday on the M50? Tons!!
A 19 year old kid may belive he's invincible but if you take the car from him for 2 years maybe, just maybe you've saved his life....
 
Kildrought said:
one of those could well be me....I'm not going to remove the L plates every time my daughter and I swap over driving!

And speaking of which, it's quite incredible the agressive behaviour of other drivers on the road when they see a small car w. L plates...I've been tail-gated, cut-up, beeped and 'fingered' in the last few days.

Never happened in my own car...
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I definitely have to agree about the aggressive behaviour of non learner drivers. As a learner myself I have come across all of the above and think its absolutley awful. Its a hard enough thing to do in the first place without idiots like this putting you off your driving, in fact this kind of behaviour is what causes the accidents in the first place.
 
just something i noticed recently,

i had a girl out recently doing lessons in my driving school car, now she is only starting to drive and ain't perfect. She stalled the car at a junction twice in the lesson and the driver behind waited and was fine.

fast forward a week later when i took her out in her own car for the first time and she stalled once more, the driver behind beeped and flashed the lights.

No time for the learner driver in their own car yet in mine all the patience in the world.

this is not the only time i have noticed this.

remember even senna had to learn to drive, have some patience for learner drivers, this girl in question wanted to quit and never drive again. Some are nervous enought without other drivers beeping horns etc.
 
IMO everybody has to learn how to drive.

Simple answer is there isnt enough cops on the beat checking the people driving cars asking for liciences to check if they have full/prov whether they have L plates up, or a full licience holder with them.

I know alot of people who have prov liciences and dont have L plates up. In my time of driving never have I been asked to produce my licience.

I feel sorry for learner drivers as they tend to get the stick for everything and when its clearly not the case half the time.

Ive been stuck behind old people doing 30mph in a 60 etc. Full licience holders are well at least half of them a disgrace speeding on by doin 80/90 in ther 06 D merc. I dont care if any of ye think im been snobby im NOT its the truth.

Learners have a L plate on there car for a reason there learning I always give them space etc and am patient behind them because I too had to learn how to drive.

And Ron like the girl your teaching I too wanted to give up but I didnt and certainly wouldnt because of other feckers beeping.

And overtaking dangerously causes accident, speeding, drink driving. And no cops out in these country roads where most of these fatel accidents happen on bad twisty roads.

I could write here all day but wont must have lunch!! :D
 
Ron Burgundy said:
just something i noticed recently,

i had a girl out recently doing lessons in my driving school car, now she is only starting to drive and ain't perfect. She stalled the car at a junction twice in the lesson and the driver behind waited and was fine.

fast forward a week later when i took her out in her own car for the first time and she stalled once more, the driver behind beeped and flashed the lights.

No time for the learner driver in their own car yet in mine all the patience in the world.

this is not the only time i have noticed this.

remember even senna had to learn to drive, have some patience for learner drivers, this girl in question wanted to quit and never drive again. Some are nervous enought without other drivers beeping horns etc.
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That girls sounds exactly like me. I was out driving last night and as wa going down a very narrow road, where i stopped to give way to an oncoming taxi, when I realised the car behind me was trying to overtake me instead of just waiting, this then caused me to conk out as I have on several occassion and when I got home all I thought was I think I will give up on this driving lark, cos my nerves just keep getting the better of me. this wasnt the first time I had impatient drivers behind me either.

I am trying to abide by the rules of the road and this is what i'm up against, it is very disheartening.
 
I've just returned to Romania after a 10 day break in Ireland with my wife.

Will someone please tell me when the Irish authorities will introduce mandatory driver training in the use of motorways as is done in, say, Germany? It's ridiculous to ban a learner from the motorway on the morning of their test only to tell them in the afternoon, on passing, that they can drive wherever they like. They are not at fault here. It's the crap system which allows them to do this

The way the Irish use motorways is just a plain disgrace. Not letting people off 'on ramps' forcing them to come to a grinding halt and occupying the outside lane whilst doing ridiculously low speeds with the 1/2 lanes to their left empty being the two biggest abuses.

And to the 30-ish bobbed blonde girl with the navy 06-D Golf doing 60kmph in the outside lane of the M7 (with two empty lanes on your inside) on the approach to the Green Isle Hotel last Friday night.....Did you pass your test THAT DAY???
 
The learning process is shockingly bad here. We had American friends of ours over last year (longer?) when the lists for the driving test were newsworthy. They couldn't get over the fact that you could drive to your test yourself, fail and then still drive home afterwards!

The learning process (and testing) here is far too preoccupied with the mechanics of operating the car alone to the detriment of the actual driving experience; traffic, pedestrains, weather conditions, type of car, road conditions, looking ahead, appropriate speed etc. etc.
 
Ancutza said:
Will someone please tell me when the Irish authorities will introduce mandatory driver training in the use of motorways as is done in, say, Germany? It's ridiculous to ban a learner from the motorway on the morning of their test only to tell them in the afternoon, on passing, that they can drive wherever they like. They are not at fault here.
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I'd have to agree with this. Motorway driving is very different to driving on regular roads. It's a skill that needs to be taught. At a bare minimum, learner drivers should be allowed on the motorway with an instructor.
 
It's not just learner drivers that other drivers have no patience for- I find it all the time, and I'm not a learner driver. I have years of experience driving and I think I'm a fairly safe driver. I've never caused a crash, although I have been crashed into. I often experience 'road rage' type incidents. I'm not a particularly fast driver, but then I'm not a particularly slow one either. I remember a few years back in Galway I was driving my then bosses car up one of those multi-storey car parks. His car was much bigger than I was used to driving and I admit I was going particularly slowly up the car park because I was afraid of damaging it. All the way up a man in the car behind me just leaned on the horn. By the time I got to one of the upper storeys where there was some parking left I was so frazzled I had to stop the car and ask my boss to take over. I wonder what was so important that that man couldn't waste one minute longer behind my car? When I looked back at him his face was puce with rage.

I often remember years ago one of my aunts who has since died was living in Dublin and we used to go up and visit her quite often and she would drive us here and there in the city. At the time I wasn't used to all the various lanes etc in a city and I admired her expertise. But what I admired the most was that she was a very patient driver. If someone cut across her, she didn't even blink, just slowed down to allow them to do it safely. If someone was in the wrong lane she was the first to allow them out in front of her. If a bus or lorry wanted to pull out she would allow them out. She was a real lady in all her thoughts and actions. Wish there was more like her on the roads.
 
When my OH drives my daughter's car he always comments on the idiots who have no patience simply because of the 'L' on the car. No one toots their horn or tries to get around him when he's driving his own car.
 
Learner Driver Laws are silly & not enforced

More young deaths on the road. Because learner drivers can freely drive on provisional licences (though in law they should be accompanied this is too rarely enforced); there is a culture of being able to drive as soon as you are old enough whether you have actually taken any lessons on how to drive; insurance companies will insure you so long as you pay enough; gardai and law enforcers turn a blind eye; parents don't seem to care - they actually buy young Johnny a car for his 18th.

Surely we should have learnt a lesson by now.
 
Re: Learner Driver Laws are silly & not enforced

It is also worrying that there seems to be an acceptance that the right to drive is a human-right of sorts.

There are people who are just not capable handling a +1ton mechanically propelled vehicle, and still being expected to avoid other ones and people.

On the learner driver front I think there might be an incentive for the definate disaster-drivers to give up the driving if there was an enforced grade of L-Plate, showing for example, how many years they have been on an L-Plate, or how many tests they have failed.
 
I just want to mention two things that happened me yesterday.

1. Main road very busy met a car overtaking on a bend I had to swing to hard shoulder to avoid I flashed at him and what did he do stuck his two fingers up at me.

And 2. was coming out of town last night speed limit 40mph which I was doing this girl/boy racer comes flylin up my hole out of no where and contined on my hole untill I gave a little tap on the brake, just enough to so he could see my brake lights he backed of not for long though. Little ***** must have been doin 60 70 like just outside a town, beside a college aswell where theres allways students (half drunk at night) trying to cross the road.

anways rant over :mad:
 
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