Road deaths - We must face up to poor safety record

With six more fatalities on our roads this weekend, the carnage seems to continue relentlessly and confounds the efforts of government, gardaí and the Road Safety Authority to contain it.

Because road deaths fell for the months of August and September, Transport Minister Martin Cullen was prompted to describe it as a “glimmer of hope for the future”.

It would appear that the reduction in our appalling road toll over those two months was fortuitous, and what was witnessed this weekend is the reality that safety on our roads cannot be ensured by the various programmes that have been tried.

The Government had set a target of no more than 300 deaths this year under its Road Safety Strategy.

This weekend, unfortunately and tragically, made a nonsense of any such strategy.

It brought to a total of 303 the number of road fatalities so far this year, which has two-and-a-half months to run, including the volatile Christmas period.

The country has seen the introduction of various measures, including the points system, the establishment of a dedicated garda traffic unit, mandatory alcohol testing, new legislation, and the setting up of the national Road Safety Authority (RSA).

Two months ago, a study of road deaths in European countries over the previous two years by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) showed that Ireland emerged, to its shame, as having one of the worst records in Europe.

In fact, the ETSC ranked Ireland as seventh among a list of 27 countries.

It is no longer an extraordinary fact, and has not been for quite a long time, that young people figure to an inordinate extent in road fatalities.

This was underlined at the weekend with the deaths involving people between the ages of 19 and 25.

Alarm at so many deaths over such a short period of time has been expressed by RSA, particularly in light of increased garda enforcement and public awareness campaigns.

The fact of so many young deaths in the 17-24 age group is to be raised with the Government by the RSA, which is expected to bring new proposals to address the high fatality rate among this group.

According to the RSA, new measures are needed to achieve sustained reductions in the number of young people being killed each year.

Whatever those measures may be, they have to be cloaked in the reality and acknowledgement that this country has an appalling record that has not been improved by the various campaigns and measures introduced.

Brian Farrell of the RSA has alluded to the unfortunate fact that young men are seven times more likely to be killed and the message the authority was trying to convey was that they were not invincible.

They are not, and the sad fact is that six families are grieving a loss today and will be for a long time to come.