Senator Dooley asked a general question about our policy on drink-driving and the changes we envisaged, and, in particular, he referred to young drivers. We intend to address the question of the law on drink-driving in the forthcoming road traffic Bill to provide the Garda with wider powers. We see a need in the next road safety strategy to increase the level of enforcement. There is also a connection between enforcement of road traffic law for drink-driving and enforcement of the liquor licensing laws, and the Garda Síochána referred to that in its statement.
There is also a cultural issue. One of the interesting aspects in recent years is there has been a significant shift in attitudes among younger drivers where it is accepted that it is not responsible to drink and drive. I am not sure the same cultural shift has happened in older age groups and that is something we may need to think about. Senator Dooley referred to young drivers' combination of alcohol, adrenaline and testosterone. There is, to some extent, a cultural issue here.
Senator Morrissey asked about the number of accidents on urban roads and the extent to which that was related to enforcement of speeding limits. There are a couple of publications issued by the National Roads Authority every year. One of these is on road accident facts. The most recent report indicates that 28% of accidents occur on urban roads. If 34% of enforcements are in the 30-40 mph zones, the 28% figure is not totally out of line.
I do not have the detail of the exact locations. The NRA does an intensive statistical analysis of the correlation between levels of traffic and numbers of accidents on particular stretches of the national road network and the NRA uses that for engineering solutions, etc. There is much work done in that area. The NRA also carries out annual surveys of speeding. That will be an interesting monitoring element in terms of how successful we are in changing behaviour. We will be carrying out additional surveys in the context of the next strategy and therefore we will know.
Deputies Naughten and Shortall referred to the roll-out of the penalty points system. My colleagues in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform are responsible for, and have dealt with, the computerisation project. It is well known that the Department of Transport, and the Minister in particular, were not happy with the level of progress for whatever reason. I have dealt with large IT projects in other areas and know how they can run into difficulty. Knowing that it would not be perfect but feeling that it was essential to make a start, we decided in the summer of 2002 to go ahead with introducing penalty points from October 2002 on a manual system. I am glad we did that. We have rolled out further offences since then. We rolled out penalty points for insurance and seat-belt offences last year. The Minister indicated he intends to add the offence of careless driving from June of this year. There is a balance to be struck between the number of offences rolled out and whether that impacts on the best computer system possible. However, we want and are anxious to retain the momentum.
Once a fully computerised system is in place, it does not follow that every offence provided for in the original legislation should be included. I am sure the Deputy will recall, from discussions in the House, that when we drew up the Road Traffic Act 2002, we did so on the basis that we would provide for every eventuality but not necessarily that we would commence it for every offence and certainly not at the same time. If one takes into account speeding, seat-belt wearing and some of the other offences to which I referred, one will encounter the bulk of offences we have experienced in recent years. It does not follow that we should not introduce it for other offences but we will have as much of the system in place as we need for the time being.
On the traffic corps, discussions have taken place between ourselves, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Garda Síochána on the arrangements that should be put in place on foot of the commitment in the programme for Government. A number of issues were identified. These are principally related to legal matters and resource issues involving staffing, etc. The legal matters to which I refer revolve around the powers that would be given to people who would not be members of the Garda Síochána, particularly in light of the fact that members of the force are the only people who have the legal power to stop motorists. We have considered the experience in other countries, particularly that of the traffic corps in New York which was not an overnight success and there were several years of difficulties between the city's police force and the civilian element of the traffic corps. However, those difficulties have been resolved in recent years. We have been looking at the balance between a traffic corps that addresses road traffic law enforcement and one which addresses the issues of keeping traffic moving and preventing congestion. Both matters have a great deal to do with making the roads safe for users and not just motorists. The Minister has decided that he wants to take charge of those discussions and has indicated that he is going to do so in the coming weeks.
Deputy O'Connor asked if the strategy was reviewed. The answer is that it was reviewed. We engaged an independent road safety expert, namely, the director of the Netherlands institute. The Netherlands is one of the three countries in Europe with the best records in this area. The result of his review will be incorporated in the strategy. He broadly endorsed the approach we took in the previous strategy and that which we are proposing to take in the new strategy.
