Revised rules of road for every home

EVERY household in Ireland will be sent a free copy of the revised rules of the road.

The delivery of the expanded motoring manual to 1.7 million homes is expected to cost millions of euro. The bill will be footed by the insurance industry.

The 228-page manual was launched by the Transport Minister, gardaí and road safety chiefs in Dublin yesterday — 12 years since the last drivers’ guide was drawn up.

Road Safety Authority chairman, Gay Byrne, said: “In most of those houses, there will be someone who will be involved in using roads, whether they’re a pedestrian, a cyclist or a driver. I’ve been driving most of my life and there were things I came across (in the book) and said ‘oh, I never knew that’.”

Eight people were killed in crashes over the bank holiday weekend, one of the worst road death fatality records so far this year.

Five of those deaths were in Donegal, where Mr Byrne said there was increasing evidence of motorists driving at excessive speeds on “bog roads”. Young kids in “souped-up” cars were “bouncing off the road”, he said.

The book will include changes on the driver theory test, metric speed limits, the car test, the Luas, penalty points, mandatory alcohol testing and even road rage.

The manual will soon be available in Russian, Mandarin Chinese and Polish online. It will also be available in shops by next week, for €4.

Launching the revised rules, Transport Minister Martin Cullen said he was surprised after nearly 500 motorists were arrested for drink driving over the St Patrick’s Day weekend. He said gardaí were randomly breathalysing up to 30,000 drivers a month.

Rules were not the ultimate solution but drink drivers could no longer hide, he warned.

Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy admitted the hike in drink driving arrests meant things were “not going in the right direction”.

The peak hours for accidents were between midnight and 8am, he explained. Policing roads at these times would be helped though by the rise in garda traffic corps numbers to 1,030 by the year’s end, said the garda chief.

The Irish Insurance Federation, who is sponsoring the new rules of the road’s distribution, praised the policing of Irish motorways.

Cyclist group, The Dublin Cycling Campaign, refused to back the rules yesterday saying their concerns about danger were largely ignored.

The Automobile Association’s Conor Faughnan warned that the book might soon be out of date with new regulations for learner drivers expected around the corner.