The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has called for a review of the situation regarding electronic stability control systems (ESC) and the failure of several car firms to even offer the lifesaving systems as an option on their cars.
A new Europe-wide campaign has been launched encouraging motorists to adopt ESC systems, which can reduce crashes by as much as 20 per cent.
However, while many new vehicles sold in other European countries already have ESC fitted as standard, thousands of Irish motorists are being denied access to this latest safety technology because some Irish car importers are stripping out ESC in order to make their cars more affordable. The car industry places the blame on Ireland's vehicle tax regime, which makes no concession for safety items such as additional airbags or ESC. Importers here look for ways to keep showroom prices down, and one of these is to remove safety equipment.
Both the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), and the RSA joined those calling for a rethink of the Government's policy on taxing safety items.
Because of both the poor availability and the low levels of adoption of ESC on cars here, Ireland has been placed bottom of a new ESC safety league compiled by EuroNCAP - the organisation that tests the crash safety of all new cars launched in Europe.
While it was found that just over half of all new cars sold in Ireland have electronic stability programmes fitted as standard, well over one-quarter do not even offer this life-saving equipment as an option. This means Ireland is ranked below countries with traditionally poor levels of road safety, such as Malta, Slovenia and Lithuania.
Countries with exemplary road safety records, such as Denmark and Sweden, have almost 75 per cent of their new cars fitted with ESC as standard, although Britain, which also has one of Europe's best road safety records, comes surprisingly low on the ESC chart at fifth from bottom.
Electronic stability control systems sense when a car starts to skid, and use the ABS system to apply braking to individual wheels to stabilise the vehicle. The system also detect differences between a car's direction and that intended by the driver, and then automatically intervenes to try to correct any difference between the two.
A Europe-wide Choose ESC! campaign has been launched. The campaign, which is led by the FIA international automobile foundation with the support of the European Commission, carmakers and road safety organisations, aims to raise awareness of ESC and increase the take-up of this life-saving technology.
At the launch of the campaign, the FIA president Max Mosley was critical of high vehicle tax countries such as Ireland that continue to tax safety items heavily.
The campaign comes in advance of the European Commission's plans to force carmakers to fit ESC as standard within five years, and is part of an overall strategy to cut the numbers killed on Europe's roads by 50 per cent within the next three years.