Road safety is in our hands

EVERY Bank Holiday and festive period the road safety warnings are issued.

It was no different in the run up to this year's August Bank Holiday weekend.

"Two people died on our roads over the August Bank Holiday last year and it is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that this figure is not exceeded but preferably reduced to zero this weekend," read Friday's warning from the National Safety Council (NSC).

Just three days later last year's figure had been more than quadrupled. Nine people were dead, one a seven-year-old boy, another a 51-year-old woman in a hackney cab hit by a garda car.

Despite issuing the bank holiday warning, the NSC's Pat Costello did just a handful of interviews on Friday. Late last week the issue received minimal coverage.

Yesterday, he was vexed and frustrated as the weekend's fatalities ensured a flood of calls from journalists.

The central message the NSC has been struggling to get across for years is that road safety is not just something to read about in the next day's papers. It is something that requires a large scale shift in public attitude and practice.

But ultimately can that ever happen in a country where motorists know the chances are they will not get caught if they drive dangerously?

In Ireland insurers have calculated, and crucially budget for, around 30 road fatalities for every 100,000 cars.

That rate puts us third worst in Europe after Portugal and Greece, according to the Irish Insurer's Federation.

Put another way, in 12 other European nations less people are killed than in Ireland for every car on the road.

So what are we doing wrong? According to the NSC, it's more a question of what we are not doing.

And what we are not doing, as ever, is driving safely and acting responsibly while behind the wheel.

"Things like driving at inappropriate speeds is now a question of mass disobedience," said Mr Costello.

But aside from what drivers are not doing there is also the question of what the authorities are failing to do. "Conditions must be created in which punishment will be automatic," Mr Costello said.

These conditions are clearly not in place, although the authorities are quick to point out that more than 450,000 speeding fines alone were handed out last year. Given our high fatality rates, this is obviously still not enough to deter what Mr Costello calls the mass disobedience of road users.

That fact is also recognised by those within the Department of Transport. "It's only when people are caught for something that it works. That's when it becomes a great deterrent," said a spokesperson for Transport Minister, Seamus Brennan.

And so everyone is pinning their hopes on the much heralded introduction of a penalty points system which has been proven to reduce fatalities elsewhere in Europe.

The Government had initially promised to introduce such a system in 1998. Four years later and the first phase of the programme will come online in October.

Earlier this year the NSC said full implementation of a road safety strategy could save 200 lives per year. With 411 killed last year that would make a significant difference. Another 12,000 were injured last year, 1,600 of them seriously.

But full implementation of the penalty points system is not scheduled until the end of next year. Meanwhile Irish road fatalities which are double those of countries such as Sweden and Holland, where tough safety strategies are enforced, look set to remain high.

Responding to the weekend's death toll, Transport Minister Seamus Brennan spoke of the penalty points system and in addition promised a new garda traffic section from next year.

But those in his department did not sound confident about the creation of the new garda section anytime soon.

"That still has to be ironed out and the issue of funding will have to be looked at more closely," said a Transport Department spokesperson.

Meanwhile the warnings will continue to be issued and largely ignored.

Garda staff associations yesterday insisted that the proposed new traffic corps be kept within the force. "It doesn't make sense to go outside of the force, when we have a perfectly capable traffic corps, trained and motivated, but who have not been let do the job because of lack of resources," said PJ Stone of the Garda Representative Association.