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YESTERDAY’S ROAD SAFETY Authority (RSA) international road safety conference had a simple theme – alcohol, and what can be done to stop its destructive effect on the nation’s roads.
The same conference delivered the news that the number of drink driving offences is up 18% on this time last year. Speaking to those gathered, Garda Superintendent Con O’Donohoe made it clear that this is a good thing.
At least now gardaí know the scale of the problem they’re dealing with is his way of thinking, and, following the years of austerity which saw the force’s numbers depleted, they are now using the RSA’s statistical research on the subject to map their resources accordingly.
Be that as it may, much of the conference was dedicated to the ways that Ireland may reduce the eye-watering levels of drink-driving on its roads. Methods like…
Interlock ignition systems
An interlock system is basically a breathalyser device which must be utilised before a car can be started. As such, it applies to people who have already been convicted of drink driving and is a method for them to stay on the road when their licence would ordinarily be suspended.
The standard bearer here is Scandinavia, and Pär-Ola Skarviken of the Swedish Transport Agency gave the conference a lecture on how the system works.
In 1998 Sweden introduced the Vision Zero initiative aimed at bringing down its level of road fatalities. In 19 years that figure has fallen from 500 annually to 270. Not quite zero, but not to be sniffed at, particularly for a country with a population of nearly 10 million.
There, when a driver is caught drink driving they face a choice – be taken off the road for minimum one year, or spend between €2,000 and €4,000 having an interlock installed in their car (the contract for installing the devices is held by just four companies).
The driver uploads his or her breath data once a week online, and after one or two years of that they can reapply for their full licence. If they fail to pass a test, the car become unusable for an hour.
“The public awareness of drink driving in Sweden is quite huge,” Skarviken told TheJournal.ie. “That’s our tradition, there’s no social acceptance for it, not in any age group.”
We’re also quite open to new technical things also I think.
There are no specific statistics to prove the effectiveness of interlocks there. However, Vision Zero has seen the country nearly halve its road deaths, and the interlocks are seen as an integral part of that.
We mention that in order for the system to fly in Ireland, some sort of proof of empirical effectiveness might be needed for a sceptical populace.
“We have similar reactions,” he replies. “But it’s not a punishment, it’s a separate process. It won’t keep you out of prison. But it may allow you to drive legally and stop you from drinking at the same time.”
So, given interlocks are being given time on the main stage at the RSA’s conference, how likely is it they’ll end up being used here?
“We’ll certainly be looking at them,” says Denis Cusack of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety (which infamously exposed the gardaí’s concoction of over a million breath tests in recent times). “Much of it will come down to a cost benefit analysis as you might imagine. And we’ll have to see about the legals of it, because people here will most likely object to being told they have to use one.”
Lots and lots of breath testing
An underlying theme of the conference was the fact that more breath testing means less drink driving.
A stark statistic is that, between 2008 and 2012, Ireland’s rate of alcohol-related road fatalities was 30%, fully double that of England. The reason why? Well, one of them is that they do more breath testing.
Evidence from around the world was presented, from the European Transport Safety Council, to the Guardia Civil in Spain. Ireland of course is still smarting from its own breath test-related scandal. Which is a pity because there’s overwhelming evidence that the more of it that’s carried out, the less drink driving occurs.
Australia was probably the most interesting example cited. For a culture that we believe to be so similar to our own, and which is commonly crudely sketched as a macho paradise, most states there breathalyse each licenced driver at least once a year, according to Barry Watson of the Queensland Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety.
35% of Queensland’s residents have been breathalysed in the last six months alone. And if you fail a test? Automatic suspension.
And still it’s a problem that has not been fully conquered – 20% of fatalities in Australia continue to be alcohol-related. Drink driving is a problem with no comprehensive fix it seems.
Course of action
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland and the UK have been running three-week, anti-drink driving courses for those convicted of certain alcohol-related road offences full-time since 2006.
Those courses are designed with two things in mind – show an offender the impact of their behaviour, and make them change. There’s a practical result from attendance (which is voluntary) – disqualification terms can be reduced by 25%.
There’s a reason these courses are in place – they work. They’re also self-funding – each one costs about €180 at the offender’s expense.
Problems with them include the fact that referral is down to judicial discretion (at present), which means there’s little consistency across the board in the North, and non-completion. Here the young, male ego comes into play, in much the same way that young men are involved in an overwhelming number of alcohol-related collisions in the Republic.
Women and older offenders are much more likely to complete such a course. But when people do go the distance (a course lasts a mere 16 hours over three sessions), verifiable results have been seen – people don’t tend to reoffend.
What will actually happen?
The likelihood or otherwise of these measures (even expanded breath testing) actually coming into play here of course remains to be seen.
At present, the main game in town is a push by Minister for Transport Shane Ross to have anyone caught offending immediately suspended from driving (at present those apprehended having broken the legal limit to a relatively minor extent can escape with penalty points and a fine).
Speaking yesterday, Ross said that he is “at a loss” as to why his Road Traffic Bill is dragging its feet through the Oireachtas.
“I must reiterate that the new legislation will not change the current drink-driving blood-alcohol limit,” he said.
What are being changed are the consequences for drivers detected drink-driving at lower levels. This is simply about ensuring proper consequences when people drive while over the existing limits.
Last year we lost 188 people on our roads, something we shouldn’t tolerate if we are to call ourselves a civilised society. We must do whatever we can to reduce the number of people being killed.
Oddly enough, Ireland’s Blood Alcohol Limit (which currently stands at 0.05 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood) is roughly in the middle-ground of European standards – more draconian than that seen in the UK (which, as Martin Mayock of the Northern Ireland Infrastrucure Board pointed out, could explain Ireland’s heavier percentage of alcohol-related incidents in comparison with the UK), but less so than the zero tolerance seen in eastern European countries like Romania and the Czech Republic.
Ross has insisted that the current limit is not for changing. If statistics don’t improve, don’t be surprised if that is a promise he cannot keep.
Now a price war is needed. Some outrageous prices for substandard services out there at the moment.
€24.24 per month for “up to” 200Mb broadband isn’t too bad.
I’m with upc the price and service are fantastic!
If you have proof if that, the competition authority would like to hear from you.
Unofficial = no written proof = tinfoil hat rumour mongering
I see Mallow is the only place in north Cork getting it. That’s still half hour drive from me. I will believe all this when I see it. Unfortunately companies have a habit of making big bold promises they never deliver on time or ever.
Be able to back up your point with factual evidence.
Otherwise it’s just rumour mongering and the only people who will belive unsubstantiated
rubbish like that will be the niave.
Eircom are all talk. I live 2 miles out from Mallow (my house is smack bang in the middle of the e-Fibre shaded area on eircom’s site). The best I could get out of Eircom was up to 1mbit/sec and in reality I was only getting a fraction of that along with incredibly slow ping times that made it unusable. Ended up going with 3 Mifi instead as it was the only option available to me.
They were at one stage but I fear they’re slipping a little.
Horizon, their “revolutionary” service is rubbish.
The internet has been slower since getting horizon in. It’s barely fit for purpose
Haha, haha, haha, haha, I’ve got to laugh. The greatest act of fiction since the bible. We’ve still got shit wireless broadband that breaks down on standard surfing and 2g phone.
This article is pure ‘marketing’ nonsense… free advertising for Eircom.
‘Jam tomorrow’ has long been the tactic of Eircom to try and keep customers on rubbish and expensive services way behind other countries’ provision.
And as for promises for rural areas…. you would really have to believe in fayries if you think Eircom or much any other networks could give a monkey’s about you.
Eircom are terrible and lied UPC are amazing
“Orange Order Loyal” a contender for top comment of the week. King Billy would be proud of you.
I’d say your with UPC all right; the marketing department.
I got rid of Eircom, found them very difficult to deal with, customer care was very poor, hope they have improved.
Life in no motion, ask them for a separate router then. I have Horizon and it works fine. However when they installed it they placed it on the 20htz frequency. I asked them to place me on a different frequency (you could do this yourself with the old routers) and my speed doubled. There are many reasons for poor wireless speed. Have you tried connecting directly with an ethernet cable to check that you are getting the speed you are paying for? if you are getting the speed when directly connected then the problem lies with your wireless connection and there are various tweaks that can get things working again. Its all a pain in the backside though when you encounter these problems and UPC (like all providers) are not very helpful. They will check your speed from their end which is what you should be getting when directly connected but if the problem is the wireless connection then most providers don’t want to know as the problem could be caused by any number of factors. I feel your pain!
eircom will always rob you eventually, they know nothing else. upc offer you deals the longer you stay with them. much better service. nothings changed here. they can stick it on the moon for all i care.
I note they’re still using the phrase “up to 100mb”, a friend lives 1 mile outside a major town and applied for the fastest connection he could get, 24mb broadband. He was told however they’d only guarantee him 1mb, of course he’d have to still pay for the other 19mb too.
Until we have a guaranteed minimum download speed then I’ll take all these claims with a pinch of salt. If they truly believe them then they should have no trouble backing those claims up with minimum guarantees, until then. Heard it all before.
So they can hide it away and cash in on the VAT???
Just like the Government
Up to
Ye you gotta love the “up to” part ;)
We have access to 100mb broadband. Had it installed and ended up with 55mb but it would drop the connection over 20 times a day. Eircom are brutal, ended up with 7mb that only drops 5 times a day. Waiting weeks for someone to call out
That unusual, did you give them a call? It can depend on the profile you are on and you could have been assigned the wrong one. eVision limits your top speed as it needs a more stable profile.
E-fibre hasn’t been perfect but it’s generally alright and slowly improving I think. The routers are bit cheapy which is annoying but they wouldn’t be the first to do that.
Consider yourself lucky you can get that it’s about 8 times faster than my 0.8 mb
I’m having similar problems with them, my DSL signal cuts out nearly every hour. We had a technician come out to fix it and still the same, but when I ring eircom support, they don’t keep your history on file and I have to repeat the problem to a new uninterested person.. terrible service.
Same problem, DSL cuts all the time. Had a technician out, he changed the socket and the router. Problem started as soon as he drove out so called eircom and they said there was a problem at the junction box on the street and they would send someone out in a couple of days, until then they would turn our speed down to 7 so we would have consistant broadband. Brutal customer service. Had a nightmare getting it installed in the first place. The previous tenant had an outstanding bill so they said it would take a few days to install the broadband. 4 weeks later and 10 phone calls we finally got it in after been lead around in cirlcles by all the different customr service people.
Our DSL is constantly dropping too. We’ve rang Eircom numerous times and all we got was a new modem. No joy. It still drops 4 or 5 times a day. This must be a problem for them countrywide.
Think a broadband tax will be in order so
That’s what the broadcast charge will be for.
LMFAO seriously we might have it by the time my youngest is 66
Is your youngest 63 now?
If you live in a urban and have fast broadband already you will get faster broadband, if you live in a area just outside a town or built up area your probably still fecked, somehow i think ill still be on my 0.7MB upload / 0.1MB download from eircom for quite some time yet…….
Same speed as my own broadband Michael and I live just a few miles outside Killarney.
Michael, actually I think these new initiatives have a real chance of delivering fast broadband to most towns and villages. I still think there is going to be a problem outside of those towns and villages as the cost of fibre to the door is prohibitively expensive.
Is Leitrim the only county not getting it???
They’re being upgraded from 56kbps to ISDN
Pretty sure Carrick on Shannon, on the border with Roscommon is marked on the map?
An absolute joke, eircom told me the could not find my line even though my neighbour has eircom. Quality training there.
I’m from the countryside in Dublin. It would be nice to actually get any kind of broadband here. Currently Eircom says they will maybe do it when upgrading the lines in a few years, but they have been saying this since 2007 so I won’t hold my breath. They will give broadband to the newly built houses in my area but not to their long time customers.
I wouldn’t bet on Eircom providing any broadband, I live in a bit of a rural area in Dublin 15 too, and high speed internet ends about 200 metres away from our house, Eircom said, they could maybe provide us with 3 Mb/s but couldn’t guarantee it and wanted 60 €/month for this, so I’m using my mobile as router for my laptop
RTE will love this. They will be getting a percentage of the tax – per data amount – through the new data tax.
They’ll take in more than the TV licence fee they are currently getting.
Ye for services provided by Netflix and YouTube! Rte should have been privatised years ago. Keep tg4 and use it for public service broadcasting and radio one. That’s all we need.
Per data amount? Can you clarify this? You’re hardly going to be taxed on the amount of data you send/receive.
Wow! This is almost as good as Pat Rabbitte’s promise of broadband available to every home & school by 2014!! We all know Pat’s as good as his word – he wouldn’t just ‘say’ something to get votes in an election, now would he!
Was with Eircom for years and had nothing only unreliability. Would drop out about 3 or 4 times a day and customer service used to blame everything from congestion to weather.
Years ago I moved to BT which is now Vodafone and have had no problems since. I’m paying 35 Per month for over 7 years with unlimited usage. It’s now down to 32.50 per month because I’m a Vodafone mobile customer too. It 100 mb fibre and i’m generally getting 70-90. Eircom ring me every couple of months still to change back. I keep asking them can they compete with 35 per month and they still can’t. I see Eircom are advertising 24 per month offers and the at the end of the ad they say it’s only for the first 6 months of an 18 month contract. After that it goes to 45. Unreal that they still can’t compete.
Vodafone were by far the worst ISPs my family has been with nothing but trouble from them
Vodafone ha I’m having nothing but problems with them since they took over utv customers lines slow speeds same bull every time I ring. Could count on one hand the amount of problems I had with utv in 10 years now vodafone service is bullsxxt.
Intermittent 2 mb download and 340kbs upload. HELP !!!!!!!
What’s that, the Africa bundle?
Lol eircom said I will have e fibre in April then June then August then October then January 2015 now they don’t know.
Sadly not coming to a Village near me!!
Following the news that ESB are to provide Internet through the power lines, marijuana grow houses are expecting a smoking hot 200,000 gb/s speed.
Load of shite, especially for small towns and rural areas across the nation. As for 1000Mbps, lol I’ll believe it when I see it but I’m calling bs on that. It was only 2 years ago Google announced 1000Mbps fibre and I doubt we’re going to get the same speeds this soon. The UK hasn’t even got 1Gbps (1000Mbps) speeds and I’m pretty sure their infrastructure is a lot better than what it is in this country.
UK = FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet)…. The last few hundred metres are over copper and in some cases aluminium still. What is being proposed here is FTTH which is capable of a hell of a lot more long term than 1Gbps. If Eircom are investing in this type of infrastructure it is nothing but good news. Even an up front cost to the consumer of a couple of hundred euro would be well worth it in the long term. Fibre into the home is a huge future proofing measure.
BT and Huawei have successfully proved data rates for broadband of 3Tbps using traditional fibre. The future is fibre.
Ryan the UK infrastructure is not better than Ireland. They have the same problems we do especially in rural areas. There are few countries that do not have these problems except those where either the state has massively subsidised investment (e.g. Sweden) or where they have large urban conurbations (e.g. Sth Korea and Japan). Of course we could have done this in Ireland if we hadn’t sold off Eircom to asset strippers. The key is fibre connectivity to the door. This is expensive outside urban areas and not commercially attractive. However, with the backbone now beginning to be put in place there will be opportunities for commercial operators to move into areas of Ireland that currently do not have broadband and to improve services where there is broadband. A lot of this is driven by simple old fashioned economies of scale which may be offset by new technological developments.
True true. Fibre to the building or fibre to the home is totally different to the current fiber broadband offerings where the fiber stops in the cabinet and becomes copper once again. Looking forward to seeing the technology rolled out to all areas, will be amazing once its live!
I’ll believe it when I see it
I’m in Tralee and I get about 46 Mbps which is decent enough on a 50 Mbps line. It can be a bit odd sometimes but I’m happy enough with it. It’s eircom and I also a 4G signal on my Three phone. BUT it would be nice for there to be a pricing war which included phone, broadband and mobile for one rate. My mobile bill is €40 so that’s €90 a month.
Eircom offer different combinations of TV, mobile, broadband and home phone though. There are some decent deals.
Just getting my horizon box and new modem from UPC today, up to 200Mb from 120Mb and started with 50 2 years ago and all this in Sligo, couldn’t be happier.
Nice oh I can only dream of it
200mb your lucky if you even get 60mb don’t mind 200mb and don’t mind those speed test there all bullshit
maybe they should focus on getting rural Ireland more than .1mb per second in the near future. I understand their computer says we have an 8mb line, but that’s not what actually happens. It’s insulting to be charged the same amount for our connection as the 1000mb people are paying. we should be charged 10,000 times less in fact. We should be paying 1c every 4 months…
Before tgey go installing fast broadband for some areas maybe they should try and deliver national broadband coverage first???
Excuse the expression, but”it all sounds a bit irish to me”
Just back from Tokyo. Broadband there was shite so I wouldn’t get too excited about this.
What a pity someone out there can’t sort out the rural broadband issue, I live one mile from the main Killarney to Tralee road and have broadband “speed” of 0.8mb, dark ages doesn’t begin to cover it. Have tried everywhere but can’t get decent coverage. Would go satellite but they have cap on monthly usage.
Ask them about the contract length. They never mention that in the sales pitch until the very, very end.
This is great and all, but rural Ireland will be completely forgotten again. Living 10mins from Mullingar town and can’t even get a connection from eircom, never mind 100mb/s connections.
All we can get is 3 mobile broadband. Capped at 60Gbs per month and go 700mb over that and they charge you an extra 35 quid.
AH SHTOP!
Rolling out broadband, best little country in the world…
Every county town? I look forward to seeing this in the county town of Donegal which is Lifford and not Letterkenny
Here’s a link to a list of all the Eircom fibre-to-the-home sites for anyone who’s interested:
http://pressroom.eircom.net/images/uploads/eircom%20FTTH%20Map.pdf
Which is why evision for all the slating some give it now will be very successful in the long term.
IPTV is a technology platform which is cheaper and more flexible than Satellite. BT is probably going to overwhelm Sky in the UK eventually and they already have roughly as much Sport as Sky. eVision is cheap and good enough for those who don’t want to spend to much on TV. It’s improving bit by bit and the addition of an on demand service was nice.
It’s still a long way from a top notch system as you can’t control it over the internet with an App if you forget to schedule a recording. You also can’t sling content over the internet from your box at home to devices like a phone or tablet a la Slingbox yet. But it’s ultimately going to be more capable of those kind of things as an IPTV box than a Skybox.
Thanks for that.
oh no David Thank you – you inspired me to post a factual post that was removed – thus does Paddy learn the nerves of the beast !
Heard all this BS before….. People in parts of rural Co. Dublin have speeds closer to dial up than Tokyo
I feel as if I’ve read the same story and heard the same promises year on year for God knows how long. And to be honest, I think the outcome will be the same as it always is. Decent broadband available in a small number of central hubs, and the rest of the country are left to dangle with an (often crappy & overpriced) dongle or perhaps no coverage at all. As some have said in other comments, they’d be better pulling vast swathes of the country out of the last century rather than making empty announcements. It’s pathetic!
No they wouldn’t actually. It would costs nearly 10 grand a piece to connect rural houses with fibre and people aren’t willing to pay that. The costs of upgrading urban customers to new technology are minimal in comparison.
If rural user wanted fast broadband they could have it a reasonable cost.
http://b4rn.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/B4RN-Business-Plan-v5-2.pdf
Isn’t this what they said a couple of years ago?
Working overtime in the Spin department there David I see.. I hope eircom are giving you a nice xmas bonus or are the making you work xmas day like they are forcing some of their workers in the support section..
So it’ll be close to 20 yrs since it’s inception and broadband may finally come to rural Ireland. I do wonder
Excellent news. The Australians attempting this have brought fibre to the node after their government decided this would save money and time but ultimately would reduce the speed with the last section being copper. Completely defeating the purpose. Just home something doesn’t alter this grest project
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Now, if only I could get more than 2mb, that’d be nice.
I’d be happy with 10mb! Never mind 1000mb!
Two thoughts….
For what’s being offered, the general level of speed, service and usage limit with Eircom is grossly overpriced.
Many locations continue to wait for the last “round” of broadband/fibre/super-duper whatever to be installed/activated. This latest initiative will have some places – and generally it’ll be those places where employment and opportunity are limited – two steps behind.
Is it beyond the comprehension or ability of the Eircom brain cell to aspire to the highest level of service for the entire country, install it, connect everyone and then press on with upgrading ALL the network, not just those same old locales?
That’s only 125MBs. Not what I’d call super fast to be having a war over. South Korea have 10GBPs broadband. Now I’d nuke Eircom for that.
Sean let’s compare like with like. In South Korea you have an urbanised population living in apartment blocks. Ireland could not be more different. Simple economies of scale.
What about places on the fringes of these towns? We can only get 2mb where we live.
No doubt they’ll bring the fibre cables to the top of the road and call it a day!
And none for Dublin one. Thanks.
Are Vodafone not doing some similar with esb ???
Similar but different Robbie!
Same crap from eircom as usual. There is a gigabit line into the village where my parents live for the last 2 years but it is restricted to 40MB for the whole village. 200 houses all linked to a gigabyte line that has a max speed of 40mb and eircom will claim that as a high speed “connected ” village.
Brian, in fairness to Eircom as a company they have been ripped off by their owners and haven’t been able to invest. Serious investment is now being made in their networks. They are literally rebuilding their networks. I expect significant improvements. No company makes this kind of investment unless they see Euros at the end of it.
John I see your point and you are right however the line is there its just that they won’t use .t.
Brian that is ferociously frustrating. Hopefully they will use it once they get their new backbone up and running. I cannot see the logic of making an investment and then refusing to realise it! Best of luck!
Eircom are leveraging a brand new transmission protocol called “g.fast” . it was first demonstrated in 2013 and is only now being adopted by telecoms operators worldwide. BT are currently trialling it in the UK. however its still a question of how far you are from the fibre end point. more than 250m and it wont be great. less than 70m and it’ll kick ass. see here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.fast and http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/09/first-bt-trial-future-g-fast-copper-broadband-hits-nearly-720mbps.html
No wee black dots on the north east!
At the same time, only a few miles from the county town of the third biggest county in Ireland, Eircom cannot provide a reliable connection even at a meagre 1.5-2.0mb/s on their crappy infrastructure.
More hype and bollocks as far as I’m concerned.
We cannot even have a land line as there is an ongoing argument between Eircom and the council as to who should dig a 50m long trench to put the telephone line underground. 6 months ago Eircom dug a trench from the exchange box to the front wall and left it there.
Have contacted, Eircom, the council and the local politicians for votes with no luck in getting a result.
have your say