Safety plan still awaited

There were increasing calls yesterday for the Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan, to publish the long-awaited 2003-05 road safety strategy, as he presided at the signing of EU ’s Road Safety Charter in Dublin by 15 EU transport ministers – the charter is part of the European Road Safety Action Programme 2001-10.

The Department’s last strategy ended at the beginning of 2003, so there has been no published plan for the past 15 months. The previous strategy, Road to Safety 1998-2002, aimed to reduce road fatalities by 20 per cent of the 1997 level, a target achieved largely thanks to penalty points.

The 2003-05 strategy, developed by the High Level Group for Road Safety, is now ready for publication. It will try to push road deaths below 300 in three years – a 25 per cent reduction.

The delay in publication has drawn fire from Brennan ’s political opponents. Roisin Shorthall of the Labour Party believes the Minister has "taken his eye off the ball" in relation to road safety. "He has failed to get the message across," she says.

"It ’s a scandal that with road deaths so high we have no road safety strategy. Seamus Brennan is not concentrating on what he should be doing." It ’s all about resources, Shorthall believes.

"You could chance your arm drink driving and speeding. Detection rates are lower here than in the rest of Europe. The gardai are just not available."

Denis Naughten of Fine Gael says he presumes the new strategy has not been published "because the Government is not prepared to commit the funding. There has been a curtailing of funding in this area since the Government took office."

He holds the Minister responsible for the apparent reduction in the ffectiveness of the points system, which he says should be about changing behaviour, not putting motorists off the road. "You have gardai hiding behind bushes and stupid speed limits of 30 or 40 mph on dual carriageways and 60 mph limits outside schools," says Naughten.

The Minister has conceded that this year ’s road death figures are worrying, but says the points system has saved more than 70 lives. Overall, road death numbers are down by more than 10 per cent in the 15 months since the introduction of the system. The publication of an up-to-date strategy may be long overdue, but most credit the Minister with "taking the bull by the horns "and bringing in the points system in 2002. The expansion of the system continues – careless driving will incur five points from June 1st next and by year ’s end the full list of over 60 offences will be in place, along with a long-awaited computer system. #

Motorists can also expect more speed cameras, full random breath testing, central crash barriers on national routes and an overhaul of the provisional licence system. A spokesman for the Minister said such measures would form part of the new strategy.

He said Mr Brennan remained committed to the strategy and that the document itself had been approved by Cabinet in the past few weeks and was now being printed. "Much of what is proposed is already being advanced towards introduction," the spokesman said. Last Friday, the points system suffered a serious setback when five motorists won a legal challenge because they claimed to have never received the initial notices of their alleged speeding.

This came in a week in which the Minister for Justice said a dedicated traffic corps was "off the table", although it had been promised in the Programme for Government.