Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 February 2017
84. Deputy Brendan Griffin asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if the Road Safety Authority will consider the use of mobile unmarked speed detection vehicles to gather accurate information on speeding blackspots; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8709/17]
View answerThe Deputy will be aware that a new contract for the provision and operation of the safety camera network on Irish roads was concluded on 17 August 2016. The contract for the safety camera service, which was awarded following a public procurement competition, is with Road Safety Operations Ireland, trading as GoSafe. The new safety camera contract is an agreement between the Minister for Justice and Equality, the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána and Road Safety Operations Ireland, trading as GoSafe.
The Minister for Justice and Equality authorised the awarding of the services agreement for the provision and operation of safety cameras on a managed service basis for An Garda Síochána, in accordance with Section 81(7) of the Road Traffic Act, 2010. Section 81(7) of the Road Traffic Act 2010 provides for persons, other than members of An Garda Síochána, to make recordings, which can be used as evidence of an offence under the Road Traffic Acts, when authorised to do so by means of an agreement with the Minister for Justice and Equality.
The duration of the new contract is 6 years, with the option to extend the contract for an additional 12 months. Under the new contract, GoSafe will provide an annual minimum of 90,000 hours of monitoring and surveying vehicle speed across 1,031 designated safety camera zones. This equates to a minimum of 7,400 monitoring hours and 100 survey hours a month. This represents an annual increase of 300 hours on the existing contract. The new contract also contains provisions for up to 1,500 additional monitoring hours within any calendar month and the option to avail of fixed, temporary fixed and average speed safety camera systems.
The role of the Garda Safety Camera Contract is to improve road safety by changing driver behaviour in order to reduce road traffic fatalities and serious injuries by reducing the incidence of drivers exceeding stipulated speed limits, in circumstances where speeding is known to be a significant factor behind serious collisions.
The Government's current Road Safety Strategy (2013 – 2020) sets the task of making Ireland's roads as safe as the best performing countries in the European Union and beyond. The strategy aims to reduce road collisions to 25 road deaths per million of population by 2020. The recent increase in road deaths (188 road traffic fatalities in 2016) highlights the need to continue to deploy all effective measures to reduce speeding, and therefore road traffic collisions. Speed enforcement is a key component in Garda road safety enforcement strategy and the introduction of a safety camera network has been central to this strategy for several years. The network also releases Garda resources for other road safety enforcement and the speed surveying function it provides informs road policing operations generally.
The overall impact of the cameras can be seen in the number of fatal collisions in the designated safety camera zones, referred to as speed enforcement zones. The designation of specific sections of road as speed enforcement zones is based on an analysis of collision data by An Garda Síochána. The locations of these speed enforcement zones are available on the Garda website www.garda.ie. In the years 2004 to 2009 (the 6 years before the introduction of the safety camera network began), approximately 3 out of 10 (30%) fatal collisions occurred in these zones. Following the introduction of monitoring, this collision rate dropped to less than 2 in 10 (17%) in 2013 and to approximately 9% to April 2015.
After reaching a low of 165 in 2015, the 2016 increase in road fatalities strengthens the argument for all agencies to maximise their road safety efforts so as to reverse this development. The Road Safety Authority plays a vital role in the context of road safety in Ireland by:
- Developing and implementing information and education campaigns to increase awareness of road safety and promote safer driving;
- Improving vehicle standards;
- Establishing and monitoring a standard for driver instruction;
- Overseeing the system of driver licensing and undertaking certain enforcement activities;
- Working with stakeholders to ensure a co-ordinated response and ensure our collective resources are used wisely and efficiently;
- Undertaking accident and road safety research in order to develop measures and recommendations to improve road safety;
- Advising the Minister for Transport on road safety policy;
- Producing road safety strategy documents and monitoring their implementation.
