A survey this year by the National Safety Council among others found that seven out of ten drivers believe it acceptable to drive at ten miles an hour above the speed limit. This is a worrying finding. The survey also reveals that 40% of drivers believe it is acceptable to break the speed limit on local and regional roads, which account for 60% of fatal accidents and the majority of fatal accidents where speed is a factor. A total of 47% more males than females consider it acceptable to break the speed limit on these roads. Reacting to the results of the survey, Mr. Eddie Shaw, chairman of the National Safety Council, stated:
Clearly many of us in this country consider "real speeding" to be driving in excess of the speed limit by more than ten miles per hour. This is a killer attitude as there is no such thing as safe or acceptable speeding.
I fully endorse Mr. Shaw's comments.
Mr. Shaw also pointed out that doubling a car's speed from 20 to 40 miles per hour does not just double the destructive capacity of the car, it increases it by a factor of four — if a car hits a person at 40 miles per hour, it hits him four times harder than a car travelling at 20 miles per hour. Travelling at 60 miles per hour, a car impacts nine times harder than at 20 miles per hour. This is the brutal reality we must face. We must all drive more carefully and slowly. We must leave a greater distance between ourselves and the car in front and we must be alert for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, the very old and the very young.
I welcome the new road safety strategy for 2004-06. This strategy is the blueprint for the next two years for the work of all agencies involved in road safety. The last road safety strategy, which ran from 1998 until 2003, more than met its main objectives of reducing fatal and serious injury accidents by 20%. This new strategy hopes to improve on that, with a 25% reduction in road collision fatalities compared to the average annual number of fatalities between 1998 and 2003 by the end of 2006. The targets in the speed enforcement areas are especially welcome.
I appeal to everyone to be careful and to slow down. Every weekend we hear of the number of accidents and deaths that bring only sorrow, sadness, bereavement and upset to so many families. People in the prime of their lives, with a great future ahead of them, are sadly losing out due to tragic and needless accidents.
A driver should not worry about what everyone else will do because he or she could be the driver who crashes. He should mind himself and his passengers, drive carefully and make sure he is not the driver who crashes. Unfortunately, in numerous cases, the driver who worries about everyone else's driving ends up in a fatal accident.
We must drive carefully and slowly. It is better to arrive late and alive than on time and dead. I fully support this Bill. I welcome the fact that the NRA is working with the Garda Síochána and the Department of Transport to prepare an implementation plan for speed cameras to meet the strategy.
