The yellow represents less than 40 fatalities per million of population. The next colour — I am looking at the legend in the top left hand corner — is 40 to 79 fatalities per million of population. The next legend is 80 to 119 fatalities per million population. The next colour represents 120 to 159 fatalities per million of population and the blood red colour represents a figure greater than 169 fatalities per million of population. I express the caution that this is just one year's data. Some of those counties have very significant levels of commuting traffic moving through them. We need to know much more about the purpose of journey, where people were going and what they were doing at the time of collision. We are starting to collect that data with the Garda Síochána. That is the best I can give members at the moment. I have that map for a number of years.
Moving on to table 4 on page 6, the Chairman specifically asked in the invitation that I address the days of the week on which fatal collisions happen. From midnight on Saturday through to midnight on Sunday is currently the most dangerous time, as is Saturday. That coincides with aspects I will discuss later including exposure, when people are out socialising and the risk involved in that. Members should also note that Thursday is also a dangerous time. Members will see some graphs illustrating the time of day on which accidents occur, and there has been a shift in that regard.
Map 2 on page 7 shows serious injuries by county per million of population. I will read the legend on the left of the map. The lightest colour represents less than 120 serious injuries per million of population in 2007. The next light colour represents 120 to 240 serious injuries per million of population. The next colour moving up represents 240 to 360 serious injuries per million of population, and the darkest blue colour represents greater than 360 serious injuries per million of population.
Members can begin to understand the implications in terms of death and injuries for our health system and our emergency services. There are issues no doubt in terms of access to emergency services and retrieval services; the quicker those services can arrive at a collision the better the outcome. As the number of deaths on our roads have reduced, I anticipate that this year and into the future we will have a much greater focus on reducing the deaths and serious injuries. In the past we focused very much on reducing the number of deaths, we now need to move on and do whatever we possibly can to reduce the number of minor and serious injuries.
There is an under-reporting of injuries arising from road collisions. We do not have a national trauma register in our hospital system, while most other countries have one. Therefore, we know there is an under-reporting of such injuries. The figures shown in the submission are the best I can give the committee, but they represent an under-reporting in this respect.
We are in contact with the HSE and the Health Information Quality Authority to try to get a national trauma register in place, which would enable us to know a great deal more about those who suffer injuries, including serious injuries, where accidents occur, the outcome of them and the implications in terms of getting emergency and rescue services to people quickly to have them treated. The focus this year and into next year will change. We will continue to focus on reducing the number of fatalities but will focus more on trying to reduce the number of minor and serious injuries.
Table 5 on page 8 illustrates how our roads have become safer. Under the heading fatalities per million registered vehicles, in the period from 1997 to 2007 the number of fatalities halved. A motorist is half as likely to be injured or killed on our roads as he or she would have been in 1997. Significant improvements has occurred in that respect, despite the increase in population and the number of vehicles on our roads.
The graph on page 9 illustrates exposure and risk on our roads. Members may also have a difficulty in terms of the colours on this graph. The fatality rate dropped in 2007, with 2008 being the lowest. The number of registered vehicles has increased significantly, as has the population, the number of licence holders and fuel consumption. People's exposure to collisions is much greater than it would have been, yet thankfully we are making good progress in reducing the death rate.
The table on page 10 illustrates road deaths by road user type in 2007. The rate is high for car users, which is no surprise. The number of pedestrian fatalities, particularly pedestrians over the age of 65, is a serious issue. There has been a marked improvement and fall in the number of fatalities involving child pedestrians, but we have a significant problem in regard to pedestrians over the age of 65. Thankfully, good progress in this respect was made last year. The number of such fatalities was nearly halved, but too many pedestrians are dying on our roads in urban and rural settings.
In regard to the contributory factors to road collisions, there is never only one cause but often a multiplicity of factors. Based on all of the collisions we analysed for 2007, namely, 29,300 collisions which the Garda attended, in 82% of those investigations it was considered that the cause was down to the road user, something the driver, cyclist or passenger did. Some 13% of the fatalities involved pedestrians. Some 3% of the road fatalities in 2007 was down to road factors. My view is that this percentage is an under-estimation. It is based on what the Garda found in its initial investigation. Much more research is required. That equates to five fatalities that the Garda investigation considered were down to road factors. Much more work is needed in this area to enable us to obtain better data. Now that the Garda has in place forensic collision investigation across the country, I hope to be able to access that data when three or four years' data has been compiled and I imagine it would give us a much clearer picture as to the part environmental and road factors play in collisions. My estimation is that the 3% of fatalities arising from road factors is an understatement, but that is the current figure with which I have to work.
We base our costing of collisions on work done by Goodbody Economic Consultants. Based on 2007 figures, the cost of every fatal collision in this country was just under €3 million. The table on the total cost of fatal collisions in 2007, according to Goodbody's work, shows that serious injury collisions cost €386,000 each and minor injury collisions cost €38,000 each, of which there were 450. The vast majority of collisions are what we call material damage collisions, of which there were 23,700 and they cost, on average, €3,000 each. The total cost of road collisions, as shown at the bottom of that table, was €1,377 million. Thus, a massive amount of money is involved in this area. Members will note from Goodbody's work that for every euro the Exchequer spends on road safety in the broadest sense, it gets a return of €8. Therefore, when the system works, it gives a return on investment.
To comment briefly on internal factors, we have increased our standing in Europe significantly in terms of a reduction in road fatalities. In 2007 Ireland moved for the first time ever into the top ten best European performing countries. We are in ninth place. We do not yet know the outcome figures for all European countries for 2008. When we get them I estimate that, hopefully, Ireland will have moved up another few places in its performance in Europe in terms of road fatalities per million of population.
It is worth noting that prior to Christmas Dublin city was named the safest capital city in Europe in road safety terms based on the ten years from 1997 to 2007. That did not receive much media coverage but it is another good achievement for Ireland and is based on ten years of action. It will be a challenge for our capital city to retain that status.
The Chairman specifically asked me if I could get some data for 2008. All the data I have for 2008 is provisional. The year in this context does not close until 31 days after 1 January because if anybody dies 31 days after a road collision, that death is included as a road fatality. I will not have definite figures until all the coroners' cases are concluded. However, I am pretty confident there will not be major variations. Three or four fatalities may be taken out and reclassified by a coroner perhaps as a result of suicide or natural causes. Every year between three and six fatalities tend to be withdrawn from the figures.
Based on all the data I received to date from the Garda, which includes the 279 current fatalities, I have analysed them as best I can, bearing in mind the limitations that apply in that they may change marginally. The lowest number of fatalities were recorded in 2008, with 1959 being the lowest year prior to that when records began and 305 fatalities were recorded. Members will note from the table on page 15 the increase in the number of licensed vehicles and licence holders in that period. The number of fatalities for those years are in stark contrast to the number of fatalities in 1972, which was the worst year ever for fatalities when 640 people were killed on our roads, some 53 people a month. We have travelled a long way since then. The 2008 outturn of 279 fatalities is an 18% reduction on the number for 2006, which is a 9% reduction on the number for 2005. Therefore, we are definitely going in the right direction.
Table 13 illustrates, as requested, a breakdown of fatalities by road user type in 2008. The vast majority of fatalities, some 47%, involved car drivers, with pedestrians unfortunately being up at 16.8%. Those figures are an improvement on the figures for 2007, but they are not good enough. We must do much more to keep pedestrians safe. The number of fatalities involving cyclists is down slightly but the number is still a cause for concern. We need to reduce the number of cyclists being killed and injured, particularly given that fewer people seem to be cycling. While the figure is down slightly, it is not an indication that cyclists are at less risk.
Turning to some highlights of findings for 2008, 42% of the road deaths in 2008 were of people under the age of 25 years and one third of those were between 16 and 25 years of age, which is a serious issue. Reductions are occurring but not fast enough. Young people, in particular young men, remain disproportionately at risk. Some 46% of the road deaths in Ireland last year occurred at the weekend, with Sunday being the most dangerous day, accounting for a fifth of road deaths. The hour between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. was the most dangerous period in the day, when 13% of all deaths occurred.
In the last two and half years there has been a significant shift in terms of road fatalities. When one turns on the radio or opens a newspaper on a Monday morning, one no longer reads of five or six young people killed in the late hours of Saturday night or early hours of Sunday morning. Garda enforcement measures, including random breath testing, education and other measures, have resulted in people changing their driving behaviour in those hours of the morning. Fatalities still occur but the number is nothing of the order that occurred in the past. We are not making progress in reducing fatalities in the early morning commute, the afternoon slump period between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. and particularly late at night where people are tired when they are out and about. That remains an issue for us.
This type of data is exceptionally useful to the Road Safety Authority so that we can amend our campaigns to ensure we are reaching the people we need to reach but, most important, for the Garda Síochána to shift its enforcement to track and follow where things are happening. It is quite clear from this that there is a particular issue on Saturdays and Sundays. We need to talk to the Garda Síochána more about enforcement during that time.
The average monthly fatality rate in 2008 was 23 people per month. That is an awful lot of fatalities in a small country. It is better than we ever had before but it is not good enough. All the agencies have so much more to do collectively. We are heading in the right direction and we are ahead of where we thought we would be with the road safety strategy at this time but we face big risks.
Table 14 shows road collision fatalities in 2008 by age. Members will see the huge spike representing young people, in particular young men. Things settle down but one sees the spike again involving 65 year olds plus. One is talking about drivers, passengers and pedestrians. There are issues with older drivers and vulnerability and, in particular, with pedestrians.
Table 16 shows how the monthly average has been running. We would need a monthly average of 21 to meet the current strategy which states it should be 21 or better. I am certainly not comfortable with a strategy which states it is acceptable to kill 21 people per month. As a nation, we have seen that when all the agencies line up and when we have the policies in place, we get the return. The figure of 21 is a staging post to where we really need to be. Better countries would be down at approximately 45 deaths per month per million of population. We would need to be down at approximately 15 or 16 deaths per month per million of population. It would still be a lot of people losing their lives but that is the place to which we need to get to be up with the best.
The Chairman asked me to try to get some detail on the timing of fatal road collisions in 2008. Table 17 shows the timing of fatal collisions in 2008. The most dangerous time is 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., in particular 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. There is a spike in road fatalities in the early morning commute between 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. That is an issue. There are issues with the amount of alcohol present in people's systems at that time of the morning, to which I will return. Table 18 shows fatal collisions by day with a spike on Sundays.
I wish to talk about the contributory factors to death and injury on our roads. Car crashes in this country are the number one killers of young males. Driving at excessive and inappropriate speed for the conditions and competency of the driver is the primary cause of these crashes. For every kilometre a 17 year old male travels, he is eight times more likely to be involved in a serious collision than a 40 year old man. It has to do with experience, inexperience, risk-taking and exposure. Excessive and inappropriate speed is the biggest contributory factor in over 40% of fatal collisions.
I refer to simple physics. Speed at the point of impact determines the outcome. In 2007, 29,600 collisions were attended by the Garda Síochána. Speed at the point of impact in any one of those collisions determines the outcome. Any one of those has the propensity to be a fatal or serious injury collision.
In terms of pedestrians, five out of ten pedestrians will be killed if hit by a car travelling at 50 km per hour. We need to think about the way we provide for pedestrians in our built environment, both in the urban and rural settings. If we do not have safe places for pedestrians to cross the road and walk, if vergeways are not cut back in rural settings so that people are not forced out onto the road and if pedestrians do not behave with responsibility in terms of visibility, we will continue to have the kind of pedestrian fatalities we have.
There are issues for road users, in particular drivers, who need to be aware of pedestrians and to drive appropriately. However, there are also issues for pedestrians. For example, in Dr. Declan Bedford's research in 2003, of all the pedestrians killed on the roads, five were intoxicated and lying on the road at the point they were hit.
We have very serious issues with pedestrians. Kicking off next week with the vintners' association, we will give out free high visibility vests in 5,600 pubs across the country to try to target pedestrians who would be at risk. Later, in partnership with Age Action Ireland, we will give out 300,000 free high visibility vests through pharmacies to over 65s. We are trying to address the kind of issues to which I have alerted members in terms of pedestrians.
Alcohol is a contributory factor in four out of ten road fatalities in Ireland. Non-seat belt use remains a significant issue. We have seen improvements but not enough, in particular among back seat passengers. Unfortunately, 37% of secondary school children are not seat belted in the back of the car and 30% of primary school children are not seat belted in the back of the car. That is based on our field study in 2007. Those are issues of parental responsibility. One can do all the advertising one likes. However, parents are prepared to drive cars without having young children, in particular, belted. The fact that 37% of secondary school children travel in the back of a car without a safety belt is of great concern.
Across Europe, driver fatigue is now estimated to be a contributory factor in one in five, or 20%, of fatal collisions. That figure holds in Ireland also. Driving while experiencing fatigue has been shown to be as dangerous as driving at, or above, the drink driving limit. With the increase in commuting from satellite towns and the way our society has changed, many people commute early in the morning, do a day's work and commute home in the evening. There are issues in regard to fatigue for which there is no test. Any of us who have experienced fatigue will know how it impairs driving.
I refer to drug impaired driving which was raised with me when I appeared before the committee last February. The data are limited but there is evidence in Ireland that drug impaired driving is an issue. We are talking about prescription drugs, over the counter medicines, including 'flu remedies, illegal drugs and combinations. Professor Denis Cusack of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety has published significant data in this area. He identified approximately seven drugs of use and a phenomenon known as "polydrug use". For example, a young person going out at night may take some cocaine, later on in the night he or she may take some cannabis and have a small amount of alcohol and then drive.
Despite what people might say, it is not like testing for alcohol. There is not one simple test. Ireland is fortunate in that we have legislation which permits the gardaí, if they form the opinion someone is impaired by having intoxicants in his or her system, to request him or her to provide a blood or urine sample. However, they then must go to court and prove the person had the substance and that driving was actually impaired. That is a tough challenge and it is often challenged in court. The gardaí have some success but they have two hurdles over which to jump. They must form the opinion and prove the substance is in the system and then prove impairment. Polydrug use, a mixture of drugs and alcohol and, in particular, combinations of prescription drugs and over the counter drugs is definitely an issue in Ireland.
I refer to what we are doing. There are a number of actions in the road safety strategy. The gardaí and the medical bureau are tracking very carefully a number of pilot projects where hand-held devices are being piloted which test saliva or skin secretions. I am sure we will get that technology at some stage but not this year or next year.
There are actions in the strategy to examine the possibility of field impairment testing where gardaí would be trained to carry out a field impairment test. If one watches American television programmes, one will see that people are asked to walk a line, touch their nose or perform a physical function. In many situations where people are impaired, they are not able to do those things. Field impairment could be used to help the gardaí to form an opinion and then request a blood or urine sample and that is being looked at.
There is training under way for Garda officers to recognise the signs of drugs use, including the dilated pupils and the kind of behaviours which go with the seven main drugs of use. I understand the medical bureau is also looking at its capability in terms of being able to do more screening. There is a lot more to do.
The RSA is finalising its first ever drugs awareness campaign. We intend to launch it later this year to try to get the message out to people, in particular young people, to understand the implications.
We carried out an unprecedented number of driving tests last year. We made offers in respect of 474,400 driving tests. There are currently 55,000 people awaiting driving tests. The average wait throughout the country is eight weeks. The vast majority of the 55,000 people to whom I refer have already been given dates for their tests. We need to increase our capacity as regards driving tests in respect of motorbikes and trucks. Unfortunately, a number of industrial relations issues have arisen. However, I am in the process of dealing with these and I hope to be able to make progress on them in the coming weeks. We have managed to get the learner permit in place and address the backlog of driving tests. We are proceeding to review the content, quality and style of the test.
We published a consultation document last week in which we set out the kind of measures in place in other countries in respect of graduated driver licensing. We are not proposing that they be introduced in Ireland, we merely want people to offer their views on them. The consultation document refers to reduced alcohol levels, night-time curfews, increasing penalty points, hazard perception testing, age restrictions for passengers, compulsory tuition, restricted car power, extended driving supervision and a more detailed driving test. We are not suggesting that all of these would work in this country. For example, curfews cannot be imposed when there are limits with regard to accessibility to public transport. When we receive feedback on these issues we will bring forward recommendations to the Minister as quickly as possible. Primary legislation will be required to bring about any changes.
Members will recall the chart I showed them earlier which indicates those who are dying in road traffic accidents. People are not dying as a result of their being on provisional licences or learner permits; the problem relates to inexperience. People are at risk during the period when they are learning to drive and in the first two to three years after they have passed the test. We are trying to come up with measures that will keep these individuals as safe as possible and create a driving culture they will carry with them for life. The next generation of road users will then be in a better place than would have been the case with my generation in the context of preparedness to drive for life.
We also issued a consultation document on medical fitness to drive. We hope to report to the Minister by the end of March in respect of this matter. Many issues arise for people in the context of why everyone who reaches the age of 70 must attend for a medical examination. Nothing dramatic happens when individuals turn 70, so why should they be obliged to complete such an examination? We need to be much more focused on increasing people's mobility and their ability to use our roads. There are systems which identify those who, on medical grounds, should not be driving. We provide medical practitioners and specialist consultants with the legislation and policy to allow them to deal with such issues.
As the Chairman requested, I have touched upon blood alcohol issues. The Government's road safety strategy commits it to bringing forward a provision to reduce the current blood alcohol of 80 mg. Ireland, the UK and Malta are the only countries in which this level still applies. The Road Safety Authority was asked to examine this issue and make recommendations to the Minister on the most appropriate blood alcohol concentration, BAC. We made those recommendations and the Minister published them and the background research relating to them on his Department's website. The Road Safety Authority advised that the BAC for all drivers should be reduced from 80 mg to 50 mg. It also recommended that there should be a further reduction at some later date to 20 mg for professional drivers carrying out duties relating to their employment and for young and inexperienced drivers. I understand the Cabinet has given permission for a Bill to be drafted in respect of this issue. It will obviously be the responsibility of the Government and the Oireachtas to make a final decision on the matter. Approximately 112 different items of background scientific research relating to this subject are available and have been published.
The Road Safety Authority supports the introduction of mandatory testing of all drivers involved in collisions. We are of the view that this will be a matter of significant general deterrence. Under a mandatory testing regime, anyone involved in a collision would, regardless of whether they caused it, run the risk of being breathalysed and, if they are over the drink-drive limit, prosecuted. This would act as a major deterrent in the context of preventing people from driving after imbibing alcohol or taking drugs.
