Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 March 2004
382 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to claims by the Irish Insurance Industry Federation that almost 100,000 fewer speeding tickets were issued in 2003 as a result of fewer Garda speed checks on the roads, reduced hours spent using speed cameras because of penalty points paperwork, and fewer visible gardaí on the country’s roads; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6783/04]
View answerI am aware of the reports referred to by the Deputy. I understand that the figure of 96,000 referred to in the report was the number of drivers who have been notified by the Department of Transport of the entry of penalty points on their licence record. It does not refer to the numbers of speeding detections by the Garda Síochána as a person detected speeding can opt either to pay the fixed charge and accept two penalty points or to contest the charge in court and risk a fine of up to €800 and four penalty points.
As the Deputy will appreciate, the main objective of Garda activity in the area of road safety is to change road user behaviour, through enforcement and surveillance, ultimately leading to a reduction of the numbers killed and injured on our roads annually. The effectiveness of Garda activity should therefore be judged on the basis of the numbers killed and injured, not on the number of speeding detections per se. The Garda authorities have assured me that their experience is that driver behaviour is changing since the introduction of the penalty points system.
While the Garda figures for 2003 have not yet been validated, I am informed by the Garda authorities that provisional figures indicate that approximately 250,000 drivers were detected speeding last year. While this represents an approximately 25% drop in the number of speed detections in 2002, it is consistent with the reduction noted last year in the number of insurance claims and the substantial drop in serious injuries, spinal injuries and admissions to accident and emergency departments in hospitals.
In addition, the number of road fatalities for 2003 show that 36 fewer people died on our roads than in the previous year. This represents a decrease in road fatalities of 9.6% on the number of fatalities in 2002 and of 27.5% on the 1997 figure. While recent tragedies show that we cannot afford to be complacent, the consistent decline in the number of road fatalities and injuries for each year since 1997 indicates the result of the effective traffic policing of An Garda Síochána and, more recently, a marked change in driver behaviour since the introduction of penalty points. It has long been anticipated that an improvement in motorist behaviour would result in a decline in the number of detections in respect of speeding and other offences.
