Mayo editorial: Why road safety is not being taken seriously enough

Further to my recent remarks in regard to reckless drivers turning roads in Mayo into highly dangerous environments, I logged on with interest to a lengthy discussion on road safety at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport.

While such meetings are frequently dismissed as talking shops, they are central to sowing the seeds for future legislation which may, in time, result in lowering Ireland's depressing annual statistics relating to fatalities and life-altering injuries suffered in road traffic collisions.

To this end, the views expressed by Susan Gray, who founded the PARC road safety group two years after the tragic death of her husband, knocked down and killed by an unaccompanied learner driver, on St. Stephen's Day, 2004, were insightful.

While expressing disappointment that a strategy to halve the number of road deaths and serious injuries by 2030 has been more or less abandoned by the powers that be, she said she would be grateful if the relevant agencies would address the urgently needed actions to get the objectives back on track.

Her number one priority relates to learner permit holders.

She elaborated: "Every year, thousands are rolling up for their permits.

"They simply apply to sit the test and pay the RSA the required €85, yet time and again they get another learner permit without ever turning up for the test. That is appalling."

She appealed to the Road Safety Authority to make it mandatory for any learner who has been four years on the road without sitting a test and who is seeking to be issued with a third learner permit to turn up for a driving test and attempt it.

Her second key concern is disqualified drivers.

"We attended courts all over the country for years and monitored what was happening when people went to court for penalty point offences, either to be convicted of those offences or to be disqualified.

"How many of them actually presented their licences in court to have their unique driver numbers recorded so the disqualification could be activated by the authorities?

"We were so alarmed as very few licences were presented.

"Parliamentary questions were asked lately about this and it materialised that 70% to 80% of drivers do not present a licence in the court."

If this is the kind of flippant attitude that exists within our court system in respect of such an important matter, then surely one must conclude that efforts to address our road safety problems are not being taken serious enough.

Why is the driver number so important? Why does it need to be captured in court?

It is a unique identifier associated with a driver’s record, including the driving licence, permit and any penalties.

It is crucial for tracking driving history and managing disqualifications, yet 79% of drivers this year did not have it captured in court.

As Ms. Gray stated, all the agencies seem to be blaming each other, another unacceptable fact.

The Garda Síochána Inspectorate produced a report in 2014 and stated it was alarming that very few were presenting a licence in court - and yet nothing has happened to date.

Yet the situation is completely different in Northern Ireland.

Motorists have to give their licence into court on disqualification and it retains the licence.

To surrender your licence here, the RSA asks the driver to put their licence or permit into an envelope and post it to a PO box in Cork.

There is a 4% compliance rate because such a system is not fit for purpose.

In another valid point, Ms. Gray stated the number in dedicated, specialised garda roads policing units should be increased.

Up to September of this year, 633 units were in operation nationwide. That's down from 1,046 in 2009.

That statistic tells its own story.

And it's this: road safety is not being taken seriously enough by those challenged to do so.

A truly shocking state of affairs.