What can Irish legislators learn from Britain's approach to road safety, where the number of fatal crashes is among the lowest in the world. Daniel Attwood reports
While the full impact of Ireland's 2006 Road Traffic Act, which permits gardaí to carry out random breath tests and allows for the introduction of privatised speed cameras, has still to be felt, road deaths remain stubbornly high.
As a result, the government's hopes of cutting the annual death toll to fewer than 300 are in tatters - tragically 322 people have already died on Irish roads so far this year.
In Britain, on the other hand, road deaths have been cut dramatically and are still declining. Last year, 3,201 people died on British roads - a reduction of 307 compared to 2003 and 20 fewer than in 2004. Britain now has one of the lowest road death rates in the EU at less than six per 100,000 people. Indeed Britain is one of the safest countries in the world to drive, much better than Japan (7.9 per 100,000), Australia (9.0) and the US (14.8).
Ireland meanwhile continues to perform poorly with almost 10 deaths per 100,000 people.
British authorities remain committed to improving its road safety record even further. In 2000, Tony Blair launched a new strategy that set an ambitious target of reducing deaths and serious injuries on Britain's roads by 40 per cent (50 per cent for children) by 2010. As part of the strategy, much as in Ireland, the British authorities formulated a new Road Safety Bill.
Speeders and drunk drivers are targeted hardest. Habitual or serious drunk drivers will be forced to re-take their driving test and must undergo a medical examination before being allowed back behind the wheel.
"This will ensure that those who, by the nature of their offending, have been identified as presenting a greater risk of being medically unfit to drive are prevented from driving until the Secretary of State is satisfied that they are fit to do so," said a government spokesman.
Joining the drunk drivers will be those convicted of serious speeding or careless driving offences who will also be forced to return to driving school.
Further targeting drunk drivers, an experimental scheme for alcohol ignition interlocks will also be introduced. This will allow courts to force some offenders to participate, at their own expense, in a programme that will prevent them starting their car if they fail an inbuilt breathalyser test.
But it is the British authorities' use of speed cameras that has caused most controversy there.
Schools and residential areas are set to have the most controversial speed cameras installed. These cameras monitor the length of a road and then calculate every passing vehicle's average speed. The systems are designed to catch "camera surfers" who slow down as they pass conventional speed cameras and then speed up again.
In Ireland, the roll-out of privatised conventional speed cameras is still passing through the tender stage. In the meantime, there are just a handful of fixed speed cameras, as well as covert Gatso camera vans and the usual overt Garda speed checks operating in Ireland.
More controversially, Britain's new road safety bill will also allow for graduated fixed penalties for speeding as well as increasing the range of penalty points speeders will attract.
However, this, says the Association of British Drivers (ABD), will cause problems as police speed measurement equipment is only accurate to within 2mph (3.2km/h) and vehicle speedometers are only accurate to within 10 per cent. Current British police guidelines allow for a speed measurement margin of error of 10 per cent plus 2mph for prosecution.
ABD chairman, Brian Gregory, explains: "Originally, the proposal was that 45mph in a 30mph limit would result in three penalty points, with six points for 46mph or higher.
"Clearly speed measurement is not accurate enough to implement a 1mph difference between thresholds."
Unlike Ireland, the British bill will also prevent foreign drivers escaping punishment by forcing them to pay a deposit when they commit a driving offence. If they fail to do so, their car will be impounded.
In addition, while Ireland struggles to clear the backlog of driving tests and, because of this, still allows untrained motorists to drive without a full licence - something that is abhorrent to most trained drivers - the British government insists on one of the toughest driving tests in Europe.
Also it is set to introduce specialised new driving tuition schemes for 4x4 or fleet drivers. It will also allow the public to view performance tables of driving instructors.
Ireland has its NCT and Britain its MOT, but now the British authorities are to allow vehicle examiners to punish drivers of unroadworthy cars with penalty points. They will not even have to stop vehicles because where offences are detected remotely, for example by automatic number-plate recognition (VNPR) vans or weigh-in-motion equipment, penalty notices will be issued automatically.
Such VNPR systems are commonplace in Britain and are routinely used to identify non-insured or non-taxed vehicles as well as to enforce London's congestion charge.
In Ireland, Dublin City Council uses the country's only VNPR systems to manage traffic flow.
The British bill will also tackle fatigue-related accidents by piloting new motorway rest areas. The latest UK statistics reveal that driver fatigue is the cause of around 20 per cent of motorway accidents.
In Ireland, the National Roads Authority has only recently agreed to establish motorway service areas. Previously it had argued that there was no need for rest areas on motorways.