I move:
"That Dáil Éireann condemns the failure of this Government to–
combat the carnage on our roads, which leads to a death every 19 hours;
reach its own road safety targets;
reduce the spiralling cost of car insurance;
implement its own road safety strategy;
publish the Road Traffic Bill;
and calls on the Government to immediately introduce–
a structured programme for driver training;
statutory registration for driving instructors;
a road safety education programme in second level schools;
a multi-media campaign on safe driving;
a scheme to reduce the current backlog for driving tests to 8 weeks;
training for driving testers;
a reformed driving test;
a dedicated Garda traffic corps;
a penalty points licensing system;
a statutory insurance ombudsman.
I propose to share my time with Deputies Naughten, Coveney, Boylan and Perry.
This motion deals with one of the most serious issues to come before the House, the fact that so many people are dying on our roads each year, that so many are horribly injured, that the death rate here is twice the per capita rate in Britain, that there is a death every 19 hours on our roads and that this number shows no sign of abating, despite having a very comprehensive national road safety strategy. Scarcely a weekend passes that we do not wake up to hear of more horrific road accidents, often involving multiple deaths and, more often, involving young people, and also very serious injuries that completely destroy their quality of life. For all of this carnage, the Government must stand indicted for its failure to grasp the fact that car ownership and car usage is growing, that the average age of drivers is younger than it was, that the number of heavy goods vehicles on the roads has increased dramatically and that, apart from using their cars more often, people are also spending longer in their cars as commuting distances grow, that road conditions have changed dramatically in recent years, and that cars are infinitely more powerful and, consequently, potentially more lethal than they were.
Against this background of change and totally altered road conditions, the Government still operates, more or less, the same old systems of testing and training, monitoring, controlling, enforcing and penalising that operated in an Ireland that no longer exists and is now gone for ever. This inertia, this failure to come to terms with the realities of the modern Ireland has had catastrophic and devastating consequences, last year for 415 families, and already this year, in a mere seven weeks, for 55 families. If that number of people died each year, or in any one year, as a result of any other sort of preventable accident, such as a fire or the collapse of a building, or a plane or boat disaster, all the resources of the State would be marshalled into action to prevent a recurrence. There would be an immediate public inquiry. Someone would be held accountable. We would have emergency legislation, major investment, improved regulation, rigorous monitoring. In short, anything that could be done would be done.
Why then, are road deaths treated so differently? Why are they somehow more acceptable than other kinds of disaster? There is really only one difference. It is that road accidents are dispersed, and the families destroyed by those accidents are not a cohesive group. The individual families quietly bury their dead, and take home their injured and care for them in private. We, the public, quickly forget the images of the heartbreaking funerals and the mangled cars.
The Government cannot and should not forget them. One would have to wonder at the alacrity with which the Government responded when faced with the BSE crisis, when almost overnight the determination and the billions of pounds could be found to deal with an economic crisis, one which had not caused the loss of one single human Irish life, and wonder why that same determination and single-minded sense of purpose is not applied to a problem where, every single day, lives are lost. Is there not something wrong with a Government which gives greater priority to the support of income than it does to the preservation of life?
I accept that the Government recognised its responsibilities when it adopted a comprehensive five year road safety strategy. It was a strategic approach with specific targets focused on the key areas relating to alcohol, speeding and seat-belt wearing. It was a very modest strategy to reduce road deaths from the 1997 level by 20% by 2002. Modest as it was, it is not being met, and has no hope of being met at this rate. If the current trend continues for this year, it seems we will have a 20% increase rather than a decrease. Neither have any of the supporting targets any prospect of being met. They are, reducing the incidence of excess speeding, reducing the number of night-time drink-related accidents by 25%, or increasing compliance with seat-belt wearing to 85%.
They are not particularly ambitious targets for any Government to set. The point is they were set. The Government has a strategy. However, there is no point in having a strategy if the Government does not create the conditions which are necessary to achieve the targets of the strategy. It has not made the legislative changes or created any of the conditions which the strategy saw as fundamental to the achievement of its targets, despite the fact that there have been repeated commitments to these targets, including by the Taoiseach as well as other members of the Government.
In 90% of accidents, human behaviour is the major contributory factor. It is not the power of the car or the road conditions, important as they are. The single most important factor is human behaviour. Therefore, changing human behaviour has been rightly identified as being fundamental in reducing road accidents. There are two major ways in which Government can change behaviour, through education and training and through legislative changes which set standards of acceptable behaviour to which we are all expected to conform in the common interest and which then enforces that law and which penalises those who breach the standards.
I will deal briefly with the issue of education because my colleague, Deputy Naughten, will speak more extensively on this issue. With Deputy Coveney, he has done considerable research into this issue and the related problem of insurance costs for young people. They have produced a document which it would be well worth the Minister's while to look at. One thing about testing and training is that our testing regime is in chaos, and our driver training and education is almost non-existent. As many as 25% of all drivers are operating on provisional licences. There is no mandatory registration, no mandatory standards or training of instructors who play a vital and key role in imparting skills to new drivers. In any event, there is neither requirement or incentive to have a lesson before taking a car on the road. New and usually young drivers can be on the road for up to four years before they must apply for a test. That means they can be on the road for that length of time without ever even learning the rules of the road.
Despite specific Government promises, neither investment or thought has been given to the critical early habit forming years when skills, attitudes and habits towards driving and road usage are developed. The motor car, properly used, has given people great freedom and much improved mobility. However, if it is misused it is a lethal weapon with the potential to kill or permanently maim. A person in his right mind would not consider giving a 17 year old a primed bomb or a gun without giving him the most intensive training in using such weapons and an awareness of the damage they can cause to themselves and others. Yet we legally hand over, in many cases to 17 year olds, powerful motor cars which have the same lethal potential. The only training in road usage given to our children takes place in primary schools where they learn to cross the road as pedestrians. Conscientious and responsible parents protect their children but the point is that there is no legal requirement to do so.
Preparation is critical in the early years of learning to drive, but it does not end there. The strategy promised an education campaign throughout the driving years because, as in every other endeavour, we need to update our education to cope with changes. Many of us learned to drive and completed our driving tests in conditions which were utterly different to those which now pertain. When I learned to drive, for example, there were no roundabouts, motorways, bus lanes or dual carriageways. There were certainly no cycle paths.
There is no ongoing training and education despite the Government's promises. There is not even a programme which involves television or some form of media campaign. In recent years, more than 200 kilometres of cycle paths have been constructed in the Dublin area but neither cyclists, motorists nor pedestrians have the slightest idea of how they operate and who has priority at junctions, roundabouts or in any other situation. It is inevitable in such circumstances that accidents will occur.
As the number of cars on the roads grows each week, it becomes more critical that road users are operating and interacting with each other to some commonly held set of rules and assumptions about how others will behave. Anything else produces chaos. However, this is not happening due to the lack of ongoing education. People do not all assume that roundabouts or motorways operate in the same way and accidents are the result.
Road users' behaviour can be changed by the implementation of legislation and regulations to set standards of driving and road use, to monitor the observance of these standards and to penalise non-observance. Legislation changes behaviour. It sets the standard that society views as acceptable and reflects the values of a society. There is already a considerable body of legislation relating to issues arising from road use – speeding, alcohol and seat belt use – but the Government's strategy recognises the inadequacy of this legislation because it is simply not enforced. Even when it is, the penalties are not sufficiently onerous to be a deterrent.
A £55 speeding fine for the owner of an expensive powerful car is not a deterrent, yet it is known that the impact speed of an 80 kilometre per hour accident is 20 times more likely to result in death than an accident that occurs at 30 kilometres per hour. The only occasions on which penalties are onerous are in the court cases which follow accidents, when it is already too late and in most instances lives have been lost and human suffering caused.
Three and a half years ago the Government promised to introduce a road traffic Bill providing for a penalty points system which would not only hit repeat offenders where it hurts but would ensure enforcement. It would operate automatically without resorting to the courts. Three and a half years later, with 55 people dead on the roads in the seven weeks of this year, there is still no sign of the legislation. Even if it were to come before the House now, there has been so little preparatory work on the technology required that it would take another two years to implement it.
Some technology is available to assist enforcement, for example, speed cameras. However, there are only two speed detection cameras operating. I am aware this is only a pilot scheme but, apparently, the cameras are so efficient at detecting people speeding on the roads that the Garda cannot contemplate the introduction of the rest of the cameras because the automation required to process the fines is not available. That is the irony of the situation. We are not criticising the strategy; we support it. However, we criticise the failure of the Government to make the resources available or to demonstrate the will to achieve its targets.
