It's about time we had a new approach to teaching driving, says Bob Montgomery
The news that a Government advisory group has recently recommended that several hundred accident blackspots around the country be targeted by a privatised mobile speed camera system fills me with despair. Once again, it seems, an opportunity to tackle the core issues regarding deaths on Irish roads is being missed.
The nub of our problem is self-evident to anyone who takes a journey on our roads. It's very simple - we are a nation of appalling drivers.
The standard of driving one meets daily is far worse than I have encountered anywhere else in Europe. And what do we do about it? We tackle the symptoms - and even that ham-fistedly - rather than the cause of the problem.
Consider this: we train our drivers to pass their driving tests (and don't forget many on our roads have never passed a driving test). Then, despite the fact that the conditions under which we drive continually change and evolve (who among us has been trained to drive on that recent arrival, the motorway?), we allow them to drive on for a further 50 or so years without any further training or assessment.
One could even argue that we train drivers to simply pass the driving test, which is not the same thing as equipping them to survive on our roads.
Education and the changing of driver's mind-set is the only solution which will guarantee long-term results and a worthwhile reduction in road deaths.
Rosemary Smith, the famous Irish rally and racing driver, has for many years now focused her attention and skills on creating a sound basis for educating our drivers by her programme for second-level transition year students. Those lucky enough to do her course affirm that it changes their perceptions of driving on Irish roads and are in no doubt that it ultimately makes them more skilful and aware drivers.
Perhaps the key element in this approach is the generation of a pride in good driving. Yet, Smith has been a voice crying in the wilderness, bringing her Think Awareness Driver Programme to second-level schools without any official support.
In particular, she has campaigned for a national centre where young people could develop driving skills before they ever venture onto public roads. This, surely, is an idea whose time has come.
But hand-in-hand with the re-education of motorists must go a more enlightened approach to road safety. Bad decisions by those charged with lowering the accident rate are undermining any incentive for motorists to become better drivers.
The current approach to the enforcement of speed limits is counter-productive and serves to bring the law and law-enforcers into disrepute. This situation serves nobody.
Don't hide speed cameras, highlight them. After all, they are supposed to be a deterrent. It's by making them highly visible that speeds are reduced. Hiding them only serves to turn them into revenue earners with the result that motorists become cynical about them and their placing.
The same is true of the positioning of Garda in locations where the limit is artificially low. Is that really the type of speeding we want to stop?
One road which I often travel was until last week a notorious spot for Garda checks - it was rare to use this four-lane road at busy times without seeing a hand-held radar gun in action. Then a couple of weeks ago, the limit was upped to 60 km/h.
One can only imagine how the many hundreds of motorists who incurred penalty points there must feel about this long-awaited sensible change.
This type of enforcement, does nobody, motorist or Garda or lawmaker, any good. Giving the operation of speed cameras over to civilian companies operating in unmarked vans is hardly going to improve matters.
One final point regarding speed limits. The recent change to metric speed limits - a good thing in itself - has resulted in our road signage becoming even more inconsistent than it was previously because Government abdicated what should be its responsibility by passing it to local authorities. It's incomprehensible that we don't have a national signage authority to oversee consistent signing and marking of our roads.
So, where do we go next? Lets start by educating drivers to develop their skills and awareness, starting in the second-level school years and continuing throughout their driving career.
As we begin to generate a culture of pride in good driving, lets also find the means to reward good driving.
Most of all, we need a reasoned debate to bring forward a more productive approach to road safety. After all, what we are doing now is not working, and doesn't address the key issue - the appalling driving standards on Irish roads.