• Friday, 10th July 2009

Road Safety Strategy Wobbles as Funds Dry Up

The government's five year road safety strategy runs to 2012. There is a lot of good stuff in it and a fair amount has been achieved, but progress has stalled in some crucial areas as finances become much tighter. The number of deaths on the road is down – just – on last year but some key projects like speed cameras appear stalled.

Figures from the Road Safety Authority show that in the first six months of 2009 a total of 127 people lost their lives on Ireland’s roads, 14 fewer than for the same period of 2008. That may seem positive but the worrying trend is that the figures for April and May were up on last year.

The concern is that tightening budgets may reduce Garda efforts and slow down the momentum which has seen our road death statistics improve steadily in recent years. Gay Byrne voiced his frustration at this recently and the AA fully supports him in his call for renewed effort.

The most visible consequence is the ongoing delay in the introduction of speed cameras, held up shamefully by squabbles between government departments.

Motorists are not keen on speed cameras. Nearly 54% of AA Motorists Panel members said that 'speed cameras will punish motorists unfairly'; only 31% disagreed. There is no doubt that badly used cameras, deployed at areas where the speed limit has been set wrongly, would be unfair and would also be useless for road safety. But a properly designed camera network which is based only on transparent road safety data would in our view make a serious contribution. The AA has devoted its efforts to making sure that the system is designed correctly.

This looks increasingly moot as the months tick on by without any sign of progress on the scheme. Even for those who do not want to see cameras installed the lack of effort being applied to such an important road safety project is very disappointing.

In total in the first half of the year, 63 drivers and 21 passengers have died, representing the majority or 66% of road fatalities. 20 Pedestrians have died accounting for 16% of fatalities, 19 Motorcyclists (15%) and 4 cyclists (3%) have also been killed.

80% (101) of all fatalities were male and drivers in general aged between 17 and 25 accounted for nearly a third of all driver fatalities, highlighting the fact that males and this age group remain a particularly vulnerable road user category.

Over half (53%) of all fatal crashes on our roads, in the first six months of 2009, took place over the weekend. During this high risk period two thirds of fatalities occurred between the hours of 8pm and 8am. Saturday night into the early hours of Sunday morning was the worst time of the week for road fatalities.

Conor Notes: I got the same question three times from Motorists Panel members: why are road death figures provisional? Surely there can be no doubt about them? In fact there can be ambiguity on how deaths are categorised and some data may later be amended by Coroners’ reports. The statistics also allow for a European standard comparison whereby it is classed as a road death if death occurs within 30 days. Rather a morbid topic, but there you go...