Road fatalities drop saves State €74m

A DRAMATIC drop in the number of road fatalities following the introduction of penalty points has saved the State an estimated €74 million.

The figures emerged as frantic efforts were made yesterday to heal a rift between Garda authorities and Transport Minister Seamus Brennan after a Garda report, heavily criticising the penalty points system, was leaked to the media.

Figures released yesterday show that 57 fewer people have died since the beginning of November 2002 and the end of February this year compared to the same period the previous year.

The reduction, from 146 to 89 fatalities, has been attributed directly to the introduction of the penalty points system on October 31 last.

Using accepted economic models, the National Roads Authority estimates the cost of a road fatality at almost €1.3m. With 57 fewer road deaths, the estimated saving to the State is €74m.

The value is based on a ‘Willingness to Pay’ model and includes both a ‘Human Capital’ estimate - based on an individual’s lost output to the economy - and what society would be prepared to pay to reduce the risk of a road fatality.

“Penalty points, whatever its current teething problems, is more than paying for itself, not only in terms of lives, but also in financial terms,” said a senior source.

The estimates emerged as Mr Brennan had to respond, for the first time, on national radio to an internal garda audit which said the penalty points system was on the verge of collapse.

The report was compiled for the Dublin Metropolitan region and completed on 22 January this year. It said the design of the speeding tickets was fundamentally flawed and clerks were inputting speeding detections by longhand into ledgers, and this was creating a massive backlog.

The backlog could result in people who were disputing fines succeeding as summonses might not be issued within the required period.

However, Garda spokesman Supt John Farrelly said that since the report was compiled the speeding tickets had been redesigned. He said computers had been put in place for the inputting of data and that this would deal with the backlog.

He also said that no one issued with a speeding notice would get away with it.

Mr Brennan said he had called a meeting with officials from the Departments of Transport and Justice and with senior gardaí for today to discuss the matter.

The garda report, leaked to RTÉ, caused considerable embarrassment and annoyance to Mr Brennan.

He subsequently spoke to Justice Minister Michael McDowell and Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne and was reassured the penalty points system would continue to be enforced.