I move:
That Seanad Éireann, encouraged by the drop in road traffic deaths that has apparently resulted from the introduction of penalty points, urges the Minister for Transport to implement without delay all outstanding aspects of the national road safety strategy.
I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy McDaid. Senators will notice that the wording of the motion was designed to encourage a positive debate and I am delighted to see that Government Members did not feel obliged to table an amendment to it. They would have a job thinking up an amendment to something which was actually complimentary to them.
In our previous debates on this important subject many Members had occasion to deplore the absence of real progress on road safety. That lack of progress was always attributed to an absence of commitment on the part of the Government to apply fully its strategy, adopted in 1997. Tonight I am delighted to say we are in a much happier position. The improvement can be summed up in the numbers of road deaths in recent months. In November 24 people were killed, compared to 40 in the same month of the previous year. In December 22 were killed compared to 37 the previous year and in January 19 were killed compared to 35 last year. Taking those three months together, 67 people were killed compared to 112 in the corresponding period of the previous year, a reduction of 40% in the number of deaths on our roads. That is not trivial: a drop of 40% is massive. Although we must mourn each of the 67 deaths that did take place, we should at the same time celebrate the 45 lives we would have expected to be added to the total but which have continued.
Why did this sudden reduction in the number of road deaths take place? There can only be one answer: it results from a radical change in driver attitudes and, more importantly, driver behaviour due to the introduction of the penalty points system in November. That introduction provided the missing fourth element of the national road safety strategy, which is just coming to the end of its five year run. The strategy was based on initiatives under four headings: education, engineering, enforcement and evaluation. Up to the very end, however, there was a gaping hole in one of the four. A table with only three legs will become wobbly: with four legs it is suddenly stable. The leg that was missing in this case, from the very beginning, was enforcement.
I have had an interest in this topic for some time and for the last two years have had the honour of taking the chair at the National Safety Awards on behalf of the National Safety Council. We receive entries from all around the country and examine steps taken by councils, educationists and the media, among others. It has been fascinating to see the changes that have taken and are still taking place in that area. The primary cause of road deaths, however, is our behaviour as road users. Changing our behaviour is the primary element, essential if we are to succeed in doing something about road deaths. In the past the high level of commitment needed was never achieved but we seem to have been approaching it in recent times. Some years ago in a debate like this I made the proposal of a weekend free of deaths. If the whole country was to focus attention on one weekend, we would have quite a success. We made a few efforts to do this but did not really succeed. Then last November, for the first time in years, there was a weekend in which there was not one road death. It shows that with the commitment behind it, things can get done.
The strategy recognised that changes in behaviour required all those elements to be addressed. For nearly the entire length of the strategy – almost five years – the absence of a concerted approach on all elements was shown by the very modest returns in terms of reductions in road deaths and injuries. The strategy had set out what many thought was a very modest target for the reduction of deaths and injuries of only 20%, which would still have left us way above the levels of deaths and injuries of our closest neighbour, the United Kingdom. However, as we approached the very last quarter of the five year period, it was clear that even that modest target would not be achieved as far as road deaths were concerned. We now have the proof of the reason that was so: the lack of a serious approach to enforcement, the fourth crucial element in the strategy.
I congratulate the Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, on his determination to fill this gap and the energy he showed in overriding the obstructions, the foot-dragging and the inertia that prevented progress up to then. In handing out that phrase, which I do very happily, I want at the same time to avoid laying blame on others for their failure to act. That failure is now in the past. What we should do – I hope tonight's debate will play its part – is build on the success achieved and make sure that in the future we make further progress. To that end, let us look a little more closely at what changed. What happened with the introduction of the penalty points system?
What changed was the perception of the seriousness with which the Government would address this problem. Up to then there had been much talk but it had not been backed up with action. The combination of those two things – talk and lack of action – added up to a single message – that the Government really did not care. Small wonder then that people did not change their attitudes and behaviour and that the carnage continued, as in previous years, at an unacceptably high level. When it came to road safety, we were trapped in an atmosphere of inertia. We lulled ourselves into accepting a certain level of road deaths as an inevitable part of modern life, something we could not change. We went on thinking this, despite the evidence from other countries that our level of road deaths was higher than it needed to be and that people's behaviour could be changed for the better. One of the most important things that has happened over the last three months is that we have shattered that inertia, at least for the moment. There is still danger – I hear that in other countries the first few months of a new regime work very well, before people slip back into bad habits. We must be careful.
People have had their eyes opened for the first time to the possibilities of success and change. They have seen the number of deaths drop massively, virtually overnight. That should give us all confidence, citizens and Government alike, in the possibility of not only maintaining that improvement but also building on it in the future. The first thing we should note is that in drawing up a new national road safety strategy we should be much more aggressive in setting targets.
I suggest a new target of an absolute maximum of 200 deaths per year. I hate to say we will allow 200 deaths but let us make it a maximum. It should be much lower because, if the 40% reduction over the last three months is extended over the whole year, we should already have an annual total of less than 250 deaths compared with the 400 or so that until the introduction of penalty points seemed such an immovable barrier.
Our planning should be based on holding the progress we have made and using it as a platform from which to make further gains. We should also learn the lesson that we cannot make a strategy like this work on a piecemeal basis. Without attention to all four legs of the table, one lacks the synergy the concerted approach demands and delivers. Unless one fires on all four cylinders, one cannot get the engine going.
The Government must continue to deliver on enforcement and be seen to be doing so. It is that which has caused the welcome change in behaviour over the last three months – people's fear of having their licence taken away from them. If that fear is weakened over time, the bad behaviour will slip back to where it was and we will have lost the ground made so efficiently in recent times. There must be no doubt in anybody's mind that those engaged in speeding will be caught and prosecuted with the full rigour of the law. We must make sure that is understood. Similarly, the Government must show its determination to extend the enforcement of the road traffic laws beyond speeding because it is only one of the killer behaviours we must change – the others being drink driving and travelling without seat belts. Tackling these three elements will make a major impact on road deaths. On all of these fronts the Government must show it intends and means business. If it does not convince the public it is serious about this, no progress will be made and what we have achieved will be lost.
In these days of retrenchment the Minister will come up against the barrier of scarce resources but, in that context, I draw his and the House's attention to a cost-benefit study carried out in 1999 by Dr. Peter Bacon which proves beyond any doubt that the benefits to the community of investing in a road safety strategy far outweigh the relatively small investment involved. One of the problems we must address is our fragmented approach to costs and benefits which makes it difficult to accommodate spending by one Department that results in savings by another. That is a trivial matter in comparison with the importance of the problem and I hope we can overcome such difficulties in the pursuit of what must surely be clear to everyone as a highly desirable goal.
There has been much talk of a traffic corps, particularly in Dublin. I know resources are required but on recent trips to America I have been impressed by the use of older people – people even older than I – who have been brought back into the workforce. Gardaí who retired at 57 years or so could well be brought back into the force, perhaps as part of the traffic corps. The Minister could say that, if resources are a challenge, they could be overcome in other ways than the purely traditional. I welcome the debate and the Minister of State's attention. Even more so, I welcome the success of the last three months in the hope we can build on it in the years ahead.