Motor vehicles pose the greatest threat on roads

THE recently launched Campaign to Promote Cycle Safety by the Road Safety Authority shows it has its priorities upside down when it comes to protection of cyclists and pedestrians.

Road safety in Ireland (and in most other countries) for vulnerable road users has been more about trying to survive daily in a deadly car-dominated environment, rather than on effective attempts to reduce or eliminate the road danger. Removing the danger is what real road safety is about. Danger removal does not focus on putting the responsibility on vulnerable people to make themselves safer, it focuses on making the roads less dangerous and tackling the danger at the source.

The real danger on the roads comes from motor vehicles, vans and trucks and the greater duty of care has to be on those who pose the greatest threat to lives. Globally 1.3 million people die in road crashes annually and 40 million are seriously injured. Such road carnage figures are unacceptable in any civilised society and will require massive cultural change to deal with this “unacknowledged holocaust”. The present government should have a road danger reduction policy embedded in all its transport plans. Cyclists and pedestrians will be safer when effective measures to tackle the real danger are initiated.