Few people would admit to being persistently reckless at the wheel of a vehicle, yet that description can justly be applied to over 40 per cent of Irish drivers, judging by research published yesterday. The survey, carried out by the National Roads Authority, found that only 55 per cent of drivers regularly fasten their seatbelts; men are worse than women, with fewer than half of them bothering to belt up. Perhaps most depressing of all is the fact that the rate of compliance among men is even lower than it was in 1991 - before wearing a seatbelt became compulsory. Over the same period, the rate of seatbelt-wearing among women has risen by over 8 per cent.
The legal requirement - in force since 1973 - has been supported by a steady stream of reports, surveys, appeals and publicity campaigns stressing the importance of this basic and effective protective measure. In these circumstances, one must conclude that nearly half the drivers on our roads - including a clear majority of males - are guilty of flagrant irresponsibility. Perhaps most striking of all is the fact that people are reckless even with their children's lives - it has been estimated that 80 per cent of children in cars travel unrestrained.
One must conclude that many parents who, in other regards, are attentive to their children's health and safety - fussing about their food, vetting their minders and babysitters - are somehow blind to this obvious danger. On RTE radio yesterday, a surgeon who deals with the horrific head injuries caused when someone is catapulted in a crash against or though a vehicle's windscreen referred graphically to the commonplace sight of a child being transported in the "launch position" (between a car's front seats).
Last year 414 people were killed on the roads of the Republic. That total, appalling as it is, represented a 9 per cent improvement on the 1998 figure of 458, which was itself 2 per cent below the toll for 1997.
There are, therefore, signs that the message preached constantly by road safety organisations, the Garda and the Government may be beginning to get through. Yet there is no excuse for complacency: our rate of road death remains about twice as high as that in Britain - where, incidentally, over 90 per cent of drivers wear seatbelts.
It is now more than 18 months since the Taoiseach launched the Government's road safety strategy, "The Road to Safety", by describing the rate of road deaths as an unacceptable social problem that had to be tackled "immediately and systematically". Shamefully, key elements in that strategy - such as a "penalty points" system for offending drivers - have yet to be introduced. Undoubtedly, too, there are serious shortcomings in law enforcement, as anyone who drives on Irish roads and streets must know. Yet the principal causes of death on the roads - excessive speed, drink-driving, and non-wearing of seatbelts - are, above all, the responsibility of those behind the wheel. To judge by yesterday's figures, an alarming number of drivers - especially men - remain deaf to that simple message.