MotorsInterview: Gay Byrne admits he has taken on a tough role with the Road Safety Authority, and one that is far from how the public perceive it. David Labanyi reports
Gay Byrne admits he sometimes feels overwhelmed by the amount of road safety policy reform required.
"Looking at the vast expanse of stuff that has to be done, I wilt, and my heart sinks and I think what have I got myself into," he says of his recent appointment as chairman of the Road Safety Authority (RSA).
"The pressure seems to be on . . . people seem to think I have taken on a 9-to-5 job, and I go to an office every day and they are going to see results by next Tuesday week.
"I am afraid it is not going to happen by next Tuesday week. It is going to be a long slow fight to change the attitudes of Irish motorists who do stupid things."
He has no office at the RSA. He will chair monthly meetings of the RSA board - to which he nominated two members. Otherwise his role is limited to media work with the day to day running of the RSA left to chief executive Noel Brett.
His appointment as RSA chairman and public face of the Government's road safety campaign was seen as something of a public relations coup in an area where Government has been under pressure.
That the public still identifies with Gaybo can be seen from the sharp rise in his postal deliveries following his appointment.
"I throw my hands up when I see the post coming through the door at home. Dozens and dozens of letters every day from people the length and breadth of the country complaining about stretches of road where they live, or the police. There isn't a man, woman or child who doesn't have a theory about what needs to be done."
Hidden in the letters are nuggets of good ideas, he says: "One of the most delightful suggestions, in the plethora of post, was that every car driver at the end of every month - every month mind you - who remained penalty-point free, should receive €500 from the Government tax free." He brought this idea to the Minister for Transport.
"I thought Cullen was going to faint in front of my eyes. But he suddenly cheered up and said: 'Jeez wait till I tell Cowen about this' and off he went with a merry lilt in his footsteps."
"But there is a tiny grain of something there, perhaps such as reducing road tax, that could operate as a carrot, rather than a stick."
Byrne describes himself as a reluctant campaigner, saying he needs the extra work "like a hole in the head. I have signed on for three years and after that I will have had enough."
He took the role after being phoned "out of the blue" by the Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen.
"I thought about it and said 'Okay, I'll give it a whack'. Most people who have had a fairly good innings, like I have, want to give something back through public service."
He says he has turned down offers from other ministers offering a similar role. He accepted the RSA role because he believes the attitude of the public to road safety can change.
"Our attitude to plastic bags changed. Most momentously our attitude to smoking changed. If I had said you could walk in to any public place in Ireland four years ago and it would be completley smoke-free you would have said I was out of my mind."
"So I think our attitude to drink driving can be changed in the same way. Five years ago if I said I had 17 brandies last night and drove home you might have said 'fair play to you Gay'. Now you would say I was a bloody idiot and ought to be damn well ashamed of myself.
"And it only requires a wistful dream to get from that stage to it being socially unacceptable."
To get to that point the RSA will have to surmount a "lack of political willpower" and inherent difficulties with enforcement. "We have a whole raft of laws at the moment that simply are not being enforced because An Garda Síochána are saying 'we simply haven't got enough cops'.
"If they arrest someone suspected of being drunk they have to bring him to the station and wait with him for 20 minutes. He takes the breathalyser test and because he is so drunk it takes five attempts and then he is chucked into a cell to sleep it off and the gardaí get on with the administration.
That's two cops off the beat for the whole night.
"Look at the last Easter weekend. 350 people were done for drink driving and everyone says Hallelujah. What people forget is that those same arresting gardaí are wandering up and down the Four Courts for three days or five days waiting for the case to be called because the law requires them to be in the witness box."
New road safety legislation providing for mandatory breath-testing and privatised speed cameras "will free up a lot of cops" and coupled with the expanding Traffic Corps, Byrne expects enforcement levels to rise sharply.
He admits there has been a "shocking lack of political willpower" to deal with the problem of drink-driving over the past 20 years. To illustrate the point, he uses an example of an unnamed backbench TD opposed to random breath testing because "he held his clinic in a pub."
"You may say that is vulgar and awful but that is human nature and that is what you have to contend with."
Byrne expects a zero blood alcohol limit to be introduced in Ireland. "Of course the limit will drop to zero. That is best practice all over the world. As far as I can see it only requires a ministerial order and that takes no time."
Aside from drunken drivers and excessive speeding, Byrne is particularly concerned with the "18 to 26-year-old male drivers acting like gangsters and thugs."
Appointed for his communication skills and public profile, he confesses he has no idea how to change the behaviour of this group.
"I have not worked out how to communicate with the boy racers. There are idiots out there to whom the message will never get through."
"In the Rosses in Donegal they drive like lunatics. I use this as an example, but I believe it is the same across the country. There is a coterie of 18 to 24-year-olds with 10-year-old Golf GTis driving with the baseball caps back to front barely able to see over the steering wheel driving like certifiable lunatics.
"You can only pray that if they are driving towards you at breakneck speed, bouncing off the ground, that when they go out of control they kill themselves and not you."
Yet, despite the problems Byrne is not despondent.
"I comfort myself a little from my observations riding a motorbike around the place . . . that there has been a general improvement in the standards of driving, certainly in the last six months. The general body of people are driving that little bit slower and more carefully."