Road Safety Authority ‘needs teeth to do job’

THE new Road Safety Authority will simply be “rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic” unless the group is given the power and resources to make an impact, a safety expert has warned.

It is high time for action, not just words, according to the acting chief executive of the National Safety Council Alan Richardson.

His comments came in the wake of the shock resignation of his colleague, Eddie Shaw, who branded the road safety policy in this country as a “spectacular failure” resulting in the needless deaths of hundreds of people.

“I share his frustration,” Mr Richardson said. “We are a promotions and awareness body but we can only do so much. The Government must stop codding the public and saying they are going to do something.

“The changes the minister has outlined in the setting up of the Road Safety Authority are a good thing, once it is given the tools to do the job. There’s no point in arranging deckchairs on the Titanic. It has to have the money, the resources and the teeth to do the job,” he said.

Mr Richardson called for a number of things to be carried out immediately if carnage is to be reduced on our roads. “We need random breath testing. We need the outsourcing of cameras now. We also need the penalty points promises delivered. And we need to put in place a driver education programme which would help people become better drivers.”

Last night Eddie Shaw said he simply had to resign. “I went because I felt that I had to go. I had not convinced the Government on how and why it must invest in road safety. The dead can not speak for themselves.”

Opposition politicians have rounded on the Government for what they described as its “shambolic” attitude to road safety.

Fine Gael Senate Leader Brian Hayes said after nine years in office the current Government had failed to implement a national road safety strategy.

“Mr Shaw’s resignation was the only honourable course of action open to him,” Mr Hayes said.

Noel Brett, 37, who was the chief executive of the Driver Testing and Standards Authority, has now been appointed chief executive designate of the new Road Safety Authority.