Govt pledges resources to improve road safety

The Government and the Garda Commissioner pledged tonight to plough extra resources into road safety.

At an emergency summit called by Transport Minister Seamus Brennan, agencies including the National Safety Council, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and the Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) made presentations calling for urgent action.

The number killed this year on Irish roads has already topped 290 but it was a weekend of carnage earlier this month, when road accidents claimed 11 lives, which prompted the Government to take action.

At the two-hour meeting, Justice Minister Michael McDowell promised to increase dramatically the numbers of gardaí on traffic duty and said a major road safety campaign would be launched.

Legislation on outsourcing of speed cameras will also brought forward. This will take the responsibility from gardaí, giving them more time to concentrate on other areas.

Mr McDowell said computerisation of the penalty points system should be finalised by Christmas which will also free up garda resources.

Garda Commission Noel Conroy agreed to look at the reallocation of resources and the introduction of speed traps in accident black spots.

The summit focused on the high number of single vehicle crashes resulting in death on country roads, especially those occurring in the early hours of the morning.

Noel Doyle, of the IIF, said: “Commitments were given on enforcement and the outcome was very positive. I sincerely hope everything said was serious and that we will see some serious movement before Christmas.”

The IFF proposed to denote one quarter of the 2% Government levy imposed on all insurance policies to the campaign, which would total some €20m a year.

Earlier this month senior gardai backed Government plans for a fully-resourced traffic corps to stop the carnage on the roads.

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan confirmed that under the upcoming Road Traffic Bill as many as 400 gardai would be axed from fine collecting duties to join a new road safety unit.