NSC welcomes speed camera plan in bid to cut road deaths

THE National Safety Council (NSC) yesterday welcomed the Government’s long-awaited plan to privatise speed cameras in a bid to cut road deaths.

NSC chairman Eddie Shaw said this is a positive step because speed cameras have a proven track record of substantially reducing road deaths in Britain and the Australian state of Victoria.

The latest figures show that 32 people die every month on our roads and speed is a major factor in three quarters of these fatalities, according to Mr Shaw.

But the European best practice target is to get down to 20 road deaths a month.

"If we take this best practice guide, we are killing over 140 people unnecessarily in Ireland every year," Mr Shaw added.

The NSC chairman said speed cameras, combined with the new Garda Traffic Corps will substantially reduce the number of road deaths.

"You have to create the perception in the motorist's mind that if they break the law they will be caught," Mr Shaw added.

In the first three months after penalty points were introduced in November 2002 we had the lowest level of road deaths per month 21.

"There was no increased enforcement just the perception in the motorist's mind that if they broke the law they would be caught," Mr Shaw said.

But the number of road deaths have been increasing since then with the latest figures showing that 222 people died on Irish roads in 2005 up until last Friday, compared to 219 for the same period last year.

Mr Shaw believes the Government is wrong to make 80% of the new cameras covert because experience in other countries show they must be overt.

"If you want to ensure compliance there is no point in setting up a covert system the motorist has to see cameras because it reminds them if they break the law they will be caught," he added.

The Government report on speed cameras recommends that there should be more checks at weekends than on weekdays and more checks between midnight and 3am than at other times, because that's the time during which most speed-related fatal/injury accidents happen, according to the latest National Roads Authority (NRA) survey.

The NRA report (2001- 2002) shows that 22% of all fatal/injury accidents happened on Sundays and 18% happened on Saturdays.

And the 14% of all fatal/ injury accidents happened between midnight and 3am but this is also one of the quietest times traffic-wise with just 2% traffic volume on the road.