Concern over the high number of child pedestrian road deaths

IRELAND has the highest number of child pedestrian road deaths in the EU — over 40 on the last count and this will not be reduced by the new poster campaign being launched by gardaí today, the Green Party insisted last night.

The Pedestrian Safety Awareness Campaign, being launched by Assistant Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy in association with a range of national agencies, aims to cut the number of road deaths substantially.

The latest EU figures show 86 pedestrians were killed on Irish roads in 2002 and 47% of these were children.

The Eurostat figures show children also accounted for 47% of pedestrian fatalities in Britain in the same year and in Greece 40% of pedestrian road deaths were children.

While the garda initiative is welcome, Green Party Transport spokesman Eamon Ryan said we must change our transport system if were are to stop the carnage on our roads not just rely on promotional posters.

"The doubling of the pedestrian deaths in Dublin last year to 24 shows how urgently we have to act and address the real cause of the problem the system itself," Mr Ryan added.

He said six practical measures would be more effective than any promotional campaign:

Banning trucks going in to city centres without front and side blindspot mirrors and new regulations to enforce this immediately.

Forcing local authorities to impose the 30kph designated speed zones, introduced in new legislation.

Double the traffic light time pedestrians have to cross the road from two minutes to four minutes.

A nationwide schools campaign identifying the worst safety blackspots.

Use 12.3% of roads budget to make our streets and cities more pedestrian friendly this is the same percentage as the number of commuters who walk to work.

Invest more in public transport to reduce the number of trucks and cars on the roads.

But the Department of Transport, which has overall responsibility for road safety, last night rejected the Green Party claim that this latest campaign would not reduced pedestrian deaths.

"The gardaí have the minister's full support in all their road safety campaign and it is unfair of the Green Party to criticise this genuine effort," Transport Minister Martin Cullen's spokesman said.

Most or the proposals put forward by the Green Party are the responsibility of local authorities where that party holds the balance of power in many cases, the minister's spokesman added.

"If they used this power at local level they could implement many of these changes, instead of throwing the ball back in the Government's court," the spokesman said.