There are no high-risk roads in the State, according to a new report, but there is a lot to do to bring our roads up to comparative levels in Britain or Germany. David Labanyi reports
THREE YEARS after the first European Road assessment (EuroRap) on Irish roads the State has been found to have no black – or high-risk – rated routes.
Remedial works on six roads identified as high-risk in 2005 and covering a total of 96km has reduced the risk rating on these routes in the intervening period.
Although the improvements are to be welcomed, it should be noted that much of the work required was relatively minor and just two of the routes required a bypass.
In most cases, such as the N53 from Dundalk to the border the remedial works required improving sightlines, anti-skid surfacing, bend definition and traffic calming.
EuroRap is a sister body to EuroNCAP, the independent vehicle crash tester that rates the safety performance of new cars.
In its report for 2008, EuroRap notes a “significant improvement” in the safety of Ireland’s road network that it says should contribute to a reduction in the risk of collisions and their severity.
The report was based on an analysis of statistical data, including information on collisions and traffic flow from more than 7,600km of road; 5,400km in the Republic, with the remainder in the North. No roads in the North were given a high-risk rating.
Although it acknowledges high-risk routes identified in 2005 have been treated, the report found that the State has 10 roads it rates as medium to high risk that require immediate improvement. All these roads are single-lane carriageways. Almost 95 per cent of fatalities and severe injuries happen on this type of road.
Among the routes identified for remedial works was the N59 from Ballina to Dromore West in Co Mayo. The report notes that 50 people have been injured or killed on this route between 2002 and 2006.
Another route prompting concern was the N14, which runs from just outside Letterkenny in Co Donegal to Strabane. Some 71 people have been killed or injured along this stretch of road in the four years to 2006.
Conor Faughnan, public affairs manager with AA Ireland said the EuroRap data must be used as a tracking mechanism. “EuroRap identifies problems clearly and commits us to fixing them,” he explained.
As the frequency and severity of crashes falls, new measures are being introduced to help road authorities decide how roads can be further improved.
That is why EuroRap has published its first star rating – the Road Protection Score – to measure how forgiving the road design is should the driver lose control of their vehicle.
This differs from the risk rating, in that it seeks to identify and remedy problems before they contribute to crashes, rather than reacting to a pattern of collisions.
The basis for analysing roads on this basis is an acceptance that occasionally, even conscientious, sober drivers will lose concentration and crash.
The star-rating system tries to determine the likely severity of any such crash, based on an assessment of the road architecture and layout.
Examiners looked at three standard types of collisions; head-on crashes, a run-off where the vehicle leaves the road, and a crash at an intersection. Roads with a wide median and/or safety barrier have a higher road protection score than single-carriage routes with no barrier, which is the predominant road design in Ireland.
Similarly, roads with a wide verge and no trees or poles near the running surface are rated safer than those with obstructions near the roadside.
For the purposes of this assessment, the EuroRap examiners looked at paired routes between towns where there was generally more than one road available.
Although based on a sample of just 1,100kms of the network, it found that 76 per cent of national secondary roads would receive one star, the lowest rating available.
According to EuroRap, 58 per cent of these roads would have a medium to high rating in terms of their collision risk. For national primary single-lane roads 85 per cent were given a two-star rating.
The report does not provide direct comparisons in that it compares the non-strategic network in Ireland with strategic routes in the North, Britain and Germany.
However, it shows that 5 per cent of roads in the North were given a one-star rating and only one per cent in Britain. All the roads surveyed in Germany received at least a two-star rating.
According to the report, roads in the Republic rated one or two-star are primarily the older sections of the network not designed to modern standards.
Newer sections, such as the motorways, faired better with 85.5 per cent receiving a four-star rating – the highest available – and 14.5 per cent a three-star rating.
Fred Barry, chief executive of the National Roads Authority said that while the high rating given to the motorway network was encouraging “more work is required on the remaining national and secondary network”.