We could end all road deaths and all serious injury on the roads if we wanted to. The problem is we don't want to, wrties Vincent Browne.
We believe a certain road death toll and road accident toll is acceptable, or at least an acceptable price to pay for our liberty to drive lethal vehicles at lethal speeds. We accept a level of road deaths, we accept a level of maiming and horrific injuries on the roads, in return for convenience.
If there was a law that every vehicle had to be preceded by someone waving a red flag and that law was enforced, there would be no road deaths, no serious injury on the roads. At a single stroke, we could end the carnage. But this proposal is dismissed as ridiculous. Ridiculous because it would deprive us at a stroke of all the advantages of motorised private transport? Yes, it would, but why ridiculous? Ridiculous because the "balance" is not right.
A proposal to disable all road vehicles from being driven at more than 10 miles an hour (yes, it would take 16 hours to drive to Cork from Dublin) would also be regarded as "unbalanced", ie, not the appropriate balance between road speed and an acceptable attrition on the roads - ie, an acceptable death toll and serious injury toll.
Take a more "balanced" proposal: to disable road vehicles from being driven at more than 70kph (about 43mph) and the confiscation of every road vehicle that was found capable of being driven at more than that limit (yes, there would be problems with cars coming in from abroad and across the Border from Northern Ireland, but leave those complications aside for the moment). There is no way the car lobby would have that. "Unreasonable" and "unbalanced", it would say, even though such a move would reduce road deaths significantly, maybe to about 100 per year. But still not the proper balance.
Well then, how about a "balance" between 200 road deaths and an enforced speed limit on all roads of 90kph (56mph)? It would be enforced by having governors on all road vehicles disabling their capacity to be driven over that speed. Still not on. Especially the idea of governors. This would cause more road deaths, we would be told, because drivers would not be able to drive with sufficient speed to get out of danger situations (or some variant of same). The idea of vehicles being disabled from being driven over whatever the limit is apparently is not "balanced" either.
We could put a dent in road death numbers and road accidents if we were to ordain that nobody who did not pass a real test of driving proficiency was allowed drive on the roads. That's not on either.
We could put a dent in fatality and injury numbers were we to ordain that anyone caught driving with any alcohol in their system would be barred from driving forever and have their vehicle confiscated. That's not "balanced" either.
One of the arguments against these proposals is that you have to bring the populace with you, that there is no point in introducing measures for which there is no public support. Precisely my point. There is no public support for the measures that, realistically, would end road deaths and road injuries at a stroke. No public support for measures that would put a significant dent in road fatalities and serious injury.
But the point does not end there. One of the reasons there is no public support for measures that would end or significantly curtail road deaths and injuries is because there is nobody arguing the case in public. No Government Minister, no leading Opposition politician, no public figure.
No public figure such as the chairman of the Road Safety Authority, Gay Byrne.
Gay says the problem is that people don't drive responsibly, which is of course true. But this misses or avoids the issue, which is: what regulations should the State put in place to ensure people drive responsibly? Were Gay to use his venerable celebrity and new status to argue for measures that would make a serious impact on road safety, we might get somewhere. Were Gaybo to say: we have got to sacrifice convenience here to save lives, sacrifice the liberty to drive at lethal speeds, sacrifice the liberty to drive at all with alcohol taken, sacrifice the entitlement to drive unless it is established we can drive safely, responsibly and expertly (and such tests need to be repeated every five years), there might be a little more public support for measures that would really make a difference.
I would give up driving a car, owning a car, if I was required to have a man out front waving a red flag to get people out of the way. I would use public transport always, which need not be encumbered by such restrictions.
And were others to do the same we would not just have no road deaths but would also have a saner, cleaner environment, and we would free up resources to cope with every other local social problem we can think of. But that's not on either.