Deterrence in the form of stricter penalties and a sustained increase in roads policing are required to reverse the rising number of road fatalities, chairwoman of the Road Safety Authority (RSA) insists.
This week, a grandmother in her 70s became the 100th person to be killed on Irish roads so far this year.
Since Margaret Burnes was killed in a collision in Co Waterford on Tuesday morning, a further two people have lost their lives, bringing the death toll this year to 102. This is an increase of 15 when compared with the same period last year. A total of 183 people lost their lives in 2023, a sharp rise from the 153 killed the year before.
RSA chairwoman Liz O’Donnell describes the spike in road fatalities as “heartbreaking”. Though every crash is unique, RSA research shows “there is a high degree of noncompliance” with traffic laws, she says.
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“People just don’t feel like they’ll be caught. And they’re not afraid of being caught, because even if they are, the penalties aren’t too tough, so we’d be open to tougher penalties.”
The boom in noncompliance that followed the Covid-19 pandemic is ongoing, she says, with speeding remaining the most prevalent cause of crashes.
O’Donnell also says there is an increasing social acceptability of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, which she finds “really horrendous, having done years of advocacy” on the issue. This is all against the backdrop of an increasing population and, consequently, more cars, which correlates to more crashes and fatalities.
Enforcement, she says, is “of course an issue, but I think we have agreement and buy-in now from the Department of Justice and the Garda Commissioner”.
In April, this resulted in an “unprecedented directive” in which all uniformed gardaí now must do 30 minutes of road safety policing per shift, something which has made a difference, O’Donnell says.
Nineteen fatalities were recorded on the roads in January; 21 in February; and 19 in March. The toll fell to 10 in April; 10 in May; and 15 in June, which the RSA attributes to an increased Garda presence on the roads. This “must be sustained”, O’Donnell says. “You can’t take your foot off the brake at all. The minute you do, the fatalities go up.”
However, despite the RSA hoping the reduction would continue, eight people have already lost their lives in July so far. “You can have one day where there are four people killed and suddenly, it’s a huge spike,” O’Donnell says.
The RSA, which is under review by the Department of Transport to ensure it is fit for purpose, has faced stiff criticism recently, with a bloc of 30 road safety campaign groups declaring no confidence in the agency in April. A number TDs, including People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy, Catherine Murphy of the Social Democrats and the Green Party’s Marc Ó Cathasaigh, have expressed similar sentiments.
O’Donnell rejects the criticisms.
“I think it’s blaming the messenger because we are the agency that has been really successful in bringing down fatalities since 2006,” she says, recalling the “carnage on the roads” and 365 fatalities that year.
“When I was appointed in 2014 it was down to 192, and in 2021 we had 134, which was the lowest ever.”
She acknowledges that the number of deaths has “unfortunately” been trending upwards and calls for more support from the Government.
“We were doing well in reducing fatalities and perhaps there was a degree of complacency among the Government,” she says. “[Taoiseach] Simon Harris said [road safety] is a priority for him, and I hope it is.”
A number of road safety policies have gone unimplemented by successive governments only to rear their head once again years later, including garda access to the National Vehicle Driver File. Meanwhile, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said in 2019 that government plans for graduated penalties for speeding were “appropriate and entirely logical”. The penalties were never introduced.
Commissioner Harris wrote again in May to then minister of state for road safety Jack Chambers urging the government to move on the issue. He said the introduction of a graduated penalty point system in proportion with the relevant offence would deter poor driving and bad behaviours on Irish roads.
O’Donnell says the road safety mission involves a mixture of law, politics, psychology and communication, one which requires an all-of-Government approach.
“I think the Government is focused now, it did take a while for us to get across the message, including that our funding model wasn’t giving us enough resources to do all the things we want to do,” she says, noting that “just under 1 per cent” of RSA funding comes from the exchequer.
A recent Public Accounts Committee heard that the RSA generated almost all of its €100 million income in 2022. More than €93 million of that came from driving licence and driver testing fees, NCTs and commercial vehicle testing. It recorded a surplus of €5.1 million in 2022.
Appealing for more State funding, O’Donnell argues that inflation, particularly in the past two years, has affected the RSA’s ability to do its job. “The country has budget surpluses and I think, this year of all years, there should be no shortchanging of the RSA, and I would hope that we get the resources we need,” she says.
She says it is regrettable that there has been a fall-off in road policing numbers. She says while she accepts the drop is being addressed, increased numbers alone are not enough and technology must also be embraced to help gardaí in their work.
“Even this year alone, technology has improved enforcement,” she says, noting that gardaí are “confiscating cars all the time” thanks to a new system which eliminates the need to manually check insurance details.
O’Donnell, who was a Progressive Democrats TD for 15 years, five of which she spent as a junior minister at the Department of Foreign Affairs, says it’s “heartbreaking” to see so many people bereaved in recent years.
“There’s so many people carrying this grief around,” she says, describing the loss of a loved one to a road collision as a “unique trauma” due to its violent, shocking and sudden nature.
O’Donnell insists she will never admit defeat in her fight to reverse the trend of climbing death tolls. “I don’t get depressed, I just feel motivated because I know it’s doable, I know we can do it if everyone pulls together and we get enough resources,” she says.
She says the coming months will see “round-the-clock” advertisements highlighting “killer behaviours” such as speeding and driving under the influence. The ads will particularly target harder-to-reach younger drivers, with 28 per cent of fatalities under the age of 25.
“That is just a disaster, socially, economically and emotionally for the state of the nation to have all of these people losing their children on the roads,” she says.
Such a campaign, however, costs money. “We’ve spent €3 million in the last quarter just to really enhance our effort and visibility and audibility,” she says
The RSA is hoping to cut the number of road fatalities in half by 2030, a target O’Donnell describes as “legitimate – if we get back on track”.
Further into the future, she hopes to achieve an annual death toll of zero by 2050. “It’s an ambitious target, but even one death is unacceptable, so where do you find a figure?”
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