Ireland is ranked close to the bottom of an EU-wide survey on reducing road deaths, although most drivers are now wearing seat belts in cars.
Raising Compliance with Road Safety Law, a report published by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), an independent body dedicated to reducing road deaths in Europe, shows that the number of people killed on Irish roads fell by just 3.2 per cent between 2001 and 2005.
This ranks Ireland 20th out of 25 EU states for cutting deaths, despite the introduction of the penalty points system in 2002.
A total of 399 people were killed on the roads in 2005, compared with 412 in 2001 in the Republic. In comparison many other EU states, particularly France, managed to reduce significantly the number of people killed in road accidents. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of deaths in France decreased by 35 per cent, or 2,844, the best result recorded among EU countries.
Other strong performers were the Netherlands, which reduced fatalities by 24.5 per cent during the same period, and Portugal, which cut road deaths by 25.3 per cent. Just five countries were ranked below the Republic: Lithuania (+7.7 per cent); Malta (+6.3 per cent); Cyprus (+4.1 per cent), Hungary (+3.2 per cent) and Poland (-1.6 per cent). Road deaths fell on average by 18.1 per cent across the 25 EU states (excluding Bulgaria and Romania) from 2001 to 2005.
ETSC executive director Jörg Beckmann said Ireland's achievement was "modest".
"At this rate, Ireland will not be able to meet the EU objective of halving road deaths by 2010. It is time for Ireland to start learning from the best performing countries," said Mr Beckmann. "It must raise compliance in the area of road safety by curbing excessive speed, fighting drink driving and improving seat belt wearing rates."
The poor performance in the Republic was in spite of reasonably good compliance with laws on wearing seat belts. The survey showed 86 per cent of drivers wore seat belts and estimated that at least 129 lives were saved in 2005 alone from this measure.
However, just 46 per cent of passengers in cars wore seat belts - one of the lowest scores in the EU. Almost all drivers in France, 97 per cent, wore seat belts, while Germany and Sweden also reported good compliance with 96 per cent and 92 per cent respectively "belting up".
In comparison, just six in 10 drivers wore seat belts in Greece and Lithuania while in Slovakia some 65 per cent of drivers did so, according to the survey.
Ireland has one of the highest numbers of drink-related road accidents in Europe. The survey showed 28 per cent of fatal road accidents in 2003 involved people who had consumed alcohol.
National data for 2004 and 2005 was not available to the council when recent drink-driving ad campaigns were held.
In Europe the biggest proportion of drink-driving related deaths was in Sweden, where one-third of all road deaths involved people that had consumed alcohol. In France, the proportion of drink-related deaths was 28.8 per cent, while in Slovenia it was 32.2 per cent. The lowest proportion of deaths related to alcohol was 1.8 per cent in Italy.
The ETSC highlights that in France, average speeds have fallen by 6 to 11 per cent, depending on the road type. It says the picture is mixed in the Republic, where there have been speed limit reductions on some types of roads but increases in others.
The ETSC compiles statistics on an ongoing basis as part of its road safety performance index, which sets a benchmark for reducing road deaths in Europe.