We must do all we can to protect our children on the roads
SOME members of the public took umbrage at the latest campaign by the Road Safety Authority to encourage schoolchildren to wear hi-vis jackets when walking and cycling.
When drivers represent, by far, the greatest threat on our roads, they felt it was a bit rich to foist responsibility for safety on to the shoulders of the most vulnerable, our children, rather than reckless driving habits.
Some even went so far as to accuse the RSA of victim blaming, with one complainant saying that a campaign asking children to design posters of themselves in glowing outfits was ‘utterly despicable’.
While it is understandable that stressed-out parents who may have witnessed their child have a narrow escape on a busy road or those who, perhaps, lost a loved one in a road traffic accident would want to focus on the responsibilities of drivers, common sense must prevail.
Making children more visible will help keep them safe. And while encouraging good behaviour in motorists must be a priority, it doesn’t have to be the only pillar of the RSA’s safety initiatives.
The reaction was unprecedented, according to the RSA who have held the same campaign for the last 16 years without any public correspondence or complaint.
The public is correct to take road safety seriously – and to assert its belief about the importance of taking bad drivers to task.
Perhaps the engagement is a hopeful sign that playing fast and loose with the rules of the road will no longer be tolerated by society.
That said, ensuring our children are visible on the road is a reasonable safety measure, just one small part of a mosaic of measures to help keep cyclists and pedestrians safer and which in no way removes culpability from drivers who are speeding, texting or indulging in hazardous driving.
After all, if a hi-vis jacket helps save just one child’s life or spares a teenager a lethal injury, then who would begrudge the investment?
SAFEGUARDING PRESS FREEDOM
INCOMING Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell raised the issue of exorbitant legal costs in his first public speech since his Cabinet nomination.
He said it was difficult to uphold the principle of respect for the law when litigants feel they must settle a case they would much prefer to dispute, solely because the legal costs of a hearing would be ruinous.
This newspaper agrees with the chief justice and believes this to be true in defamation cases.
As well as much-needed reforms of our defamation law to safeguard press freedom, we need measures to make defending cases more affordable for publishers.
Despite long-standing promises by successive governments to review the Defamation Act 2009 so that, among other pressing issues, the ‘chilling’ effect of high/unpredictable awards on public interest media reporting can be avoided, the snail’s pace of the reform is concerning.
We welcome Justice Minister Helen McEntee’s February pledge to reform our outdated defamation law by early next year.
A more balanced approach to the right to freedom of expression and the right to protection of a good name and reputation in tandem with more realistic costs for court proceedings would likely result in more just outcomes for all.