Road safety campaigns should be run all year, says Australian expert
The Australian state of Victoria which has the same population as Ireland managed to halve its road deaths by running year-round campaigns aimed at making drink driving and speeding socially unacceptable.
Former Assistant Police Commissioner in Victoria State Ray Shuey said their road deaths were reduced from 776 in 1989 to 330 last year by targeting the three major causes of accidents speed, drink and fatigue.
And while the seasonal campaigns like Operation Lifesaver at Christmas time are a good means of getting the message across, Mr Shuey believes campaigns must be run year-round to be effective.
"We had year-long road safety campaigns that gave high profiles to drink-driving or speeding at different times of the year but it was a concerted effort," Mr Shuey said.
Their "Drink-Driving Bloody Idiot" campaign was particularly effective in making this practice socially unacceptable and the same tactic was used to reduce speeding.
Enforcement was also the key to the success in Victoria but Mr Shuey believes the gardaí and Road Safety Authority cannot solve the problem on their own.
"You must get everyone in the community involved, we set up Road Safety Councils at local level that included the police and the Road Safety Authority and community representatives and these proved to be very effective," Mr Shuey said.
He believes that we need more speed cameras here to tackle the problem so that people realise there is a 24/7 surveillance of them.
"You need to get the message across to people that if you break the law anywhere at anytime you will be caught and sanctioned," Mr Shuey told RTÉ.
He will be among the key speakers at a conference on Saving Lives on Our Roads Is there a Better Investment? organised by the National Safety Council in Dublin today.
But National Safety Council chief executive Pat Costello insisted yesterday that the Irish authorities are running the year-long road safety campaigns recommended by Mr Shuey.
"And we give high profiles to speeding and drink-driving over special holiday weekends when we know there is going to be extra traffic on the roads," Mr Costello said.
There has been quite reduction of Irish road deaths since 1997 down from 472 to 337 last year and while this year's figures are up on this time last year, Mr Shuey said this is normal for the time of year and he expects them to be reduced overall by the end of 2004.
A new Government Road Safety Strategy is due to be published shortly that will take a three-pronged approach to reducing road deaths better roads, education and enforcement.
"But each road user must take responsibility if safe driving is to become the norm," Mr Costello said.
