RSA seeks more penalty point offences and roadside checks

THE learner driver debacle may have seized the headlines but there are other proposals in the Road Safety Strategy with potential for controversy.

The RSA is keen to see its officers and inspectors given legal powers to stop and examine vehicles on the roadside to check that they comply with safety standards and wants to explore the possibilities in conjunction with the gardaí by the end of next year.

In the meantime, it urges the gardaí to begin random roadside mechanical checking of goods vehicles and buses in the first half of next year.

It also calls for a review of the criteria for medical certification of fitness to drive by the first half of next year.

Under the plan, the range of offences covered by penalty points and fines is to be expanded by early 2009, and new rules may be brought in to restrict the use of tractors and other agricultural vehicles on public roads. A public consultation process on this issue is to be completed in the first half of 2008.

Research will also be carried out on the possibility of bus lanes being opened up to motorcyclists, while legislation to tackle driving under the influence of drugs will also be considered.

Some of the 126 proposed measures are likely to win broad backing among the motoring public, if not the guardians of the public finances.

The RSA wants the Department of Transport to develop design guidelines for “forgiving road sides” — road sides which are specially devised to minimise the severity of injury to a driver or passenger when an out of control vehicle leaves the road. There is a generous deadline of 2012 for that project.

The same deadline applies to another more demanding undertaking — the commencement of remedial schemes at known accident blackspots on rural roads. The RSA says 180 such schemes should be put in place each year for the next five years.

Another move likely to prove popular is the review of the country’s erratic speed limits, which the strategy says should begin in early 2009. It calls for the publication of technical and engineering guidelines for the setting of speed limits and for all limits to be audited every two years to check they are appropriate and consistent.

One cross-border initiative will involve the British and Irish authorities jointly agreeing to recognise driving bans imposed in either jurisdiction. This is to come into effect by the end of 2008 and both sides are also to work toward mutual recognition of penalty points applied in either jurisdiction.

Other measures will include the introduction of a credit card-style driving licence within two years, a register of approved driving instructors by the end of next year and a system to give gardaí instant access to insurance details for all drivers by the end of 2009.

The strategy also calls on the gardaí, Irish Insurance Federation, National Car Test, Society of the Irish Motor Industry and the Department of the Environment to set up an information exchange so that cars written off, which cannot be safely repaired, are never allowed back on the road. This is to be achieved by the first half of 2009.