Bad motoring is ‘off the scale’
BY
CLOSE to 3,000 motorists were caught speeding at Easter as new figures prompted warnings that dangerous driving is “off the scale”.
The Road Safety Authority fears non-compliance with road laws like speeding, mobile phone use, and drink-driving has contributed to this year’s death toll of 61 already.
That figure is 13 more than the same time last year.
The RSA’S warning follows the exclusive publication of figures in the Irish Mirror four weeks ago to show that 30% of road victims this year to March 22 were in their teens or early 20s.
RSA chair Liz O’donnell yesterday appealed for harder penalties against law breakers and called for more average speed cameras to be rolled out as soon as possible.
She claimed that dangerous driving has become more commonplace since the pandemic.
O’donnell said: “For the last two years, since Covid, the level of non-compliance is just off the scale.
“People are not afraid of being caught so they are more willing to engage in dangerous behaviours.”
A RSA survey in January found 10% of drivers admitted driving after drinking alcohol in the last year.
O’donnell added: “Over Easter alone, there were over 2,600 people detected for speeding. People are routinely speeding now.”
Taoiseach Simon Harris has vowed that road safety will be “a priority issue” for him.
Ireland’s road network has two average speed cameras for 200,000 kilometres of road. A
dozen new sites have been identified, but critics claim speed cameras are expensive.
However, RSA chair Liz said: “This is nothing compared to the scale of deaths on Irish roads.”
The RSA has been criticised by some campaigners who want a shake-up of the country’s road safety watchdog – but O’donnell defended the Authority.
She said: “We can only do so much. It’s the Road Safety Authority who has been raising the issue since the direction of traffic has gone terribly wrong in terms of road deaths. So we’re there.”
She added: “Enforcement is the missing link.
“We certainly don’t have the resources to force the Garda Commissioner to actually apply more dedicated gardai to road policing.
“That’s only 635 people allocated to roads policing and that’s only 4.5% of the total overall policing numbers.
“That’s a huge deficit. It’s the missing link. It’s what we need to fix. Enforcement. Enforcement. Enforcement.”
Last year’s road death toll of 188 was the worst in nearly a decade.
People are not afraid of getting caught
LIZ O’DONNELL ROAD SAFETY AUTHORITY