Incentivise drivers and start road safety education at primary school

I was in London last year and I saw a playground where children could bring their small bicycles and skateboards. It contained roundabouts, traffic lights and all the different traffic control measures one could meet on the roads.

What a child would not have learned about the rules of the road in that small playground would not have been worth knowing.

We should consider developing such playgrounds here as part of wider road safety measures. A primary school child could be taught about yield and stop signs and the proper way to negotiate a roundabout.

But if we want to cut our road deaths in this country, we must look at the carrot as well as the stick approach. Drivers who respect the rules of the road should be rewarded. All motorists who achieve a number of consecutive years of accident free driving should be given some sort of motor tax credit.

It is estimated more than 40% of fatal accidents are caused by excessive or inappropriate speed.

Road safety education has to be improved and widened if we are to cut road deaths and it must focus on drivers who drive too fast.

But one of the difficulties encountered by people trying to promote better driving and road safety is that people do not seem to believe in statistics. They may believe the numbers of those killed and injured because the proof is there, but they do not appear to understand the causes of the accidents.

Cllr Noel Collins

St Judes

Midleton

Co Cork