The tragic advert has done its job, now it should go
RSA’s crash campaign is prolonging the pain
There is hardly a family in Ireland – including my own – who have not been affected by a road accident tragedy. In 1991, the year my 25-year-old brother Aidan was killed in a crash involving his company van and a truck, there were 445 people killed on Irish roads. A shocking figure.
This week, the Road Safety Authority came under increasing pressure to withdraw the current TV advert featuring an emotional and heartfelt testimony from Noel Clancy whose wife Geraldine and daughter Louise were killed in a car accident involving a learner driver in Cork on December 22, 2015.
The TV campaign coincided with the ‘Clancy amendment’ brought in last December which dramatically increased the penalties for any learner driver who is unaccompanied by a fully qualified driver. Gardaí are now seizing up to eight cars a day from such drivers. There are also massive fines and the possibility that the owner of the car can be prosecuted.
Motorists – especially in rural areas – are upset at what they see as ‘draconian’ penalties.
It is hard to argue with the RSA that if a TV advert means one less car death then it would have been worthwhile.
But in truth, all over the developed world, deaths in car accidents have dropped dramatically in the last 40 years. In the USA in 1980, 51,000 people were killed in road accidents. By 2017, despite a massive increase in the number of cars on the road, the USA death toll had dropped to 37,000. In Ireland the comparable figures are equally dramatic – 564 were killed on Irish roads in 1980 but by 2018 that figure had dropped to 149, every one of them a tragedy.
However, the reasons for the drop in road accidents are manifold. The primary one is that cars are now much safer than 40 years ago. Carmakers once opposed seat belts, air bags and did not see ‘safety’ as a major selling point.
Today, combined with much better roads and tests such as the NCT, car safety is paramount, with each new vehicle equipped with many features from air bags, ‘lane control’, rearview cameras and distance and parking sensors.
The reason many people are upset with the RSA advert is that the focus is on the learner driver involved in the accident where Geraldine and Louise Clancy were died. The family of that young learner driver told Liveline this week that they wrote to the RSA ‘begging’ them to stop broadcasting the advert on TV and in cinemas. However the RSA have stated publicly that they will continue to use the advert in their campaigns.
As someone who lost a young brother in a crash caused by a mechanical fault I think the RSA should now cease to show the TV ad that has upset so many.
It has been widely broadcast. I know the Clancy family have suffered unending grief, but focusing on the young driver involved in the accident is just adding more pain to an already horrific situation.