Transport Minister Martin Cullen has drawn fire from the National Safety Council. Patrick Logue looks at the background to the Minister's decision to go for privatisedspeed cameras
Martin Cullen must have left for his holidays satisfied with the Cabinet approval for his plans to introduce privatised speed checks. But the ink was hardly dry on the 40-page report that recommended the move when the National Safety Council hit out at the Government's commitment to the road safety issue.
Chairman Eddie Shaw said he was frustrated at the delay in rolling out the penalty points scheme in full - there was "no collective Government will to do this," he said. A range of proposals - including random breath testing and compulsory biker training - are yet to be implemented under Cullen's charge.
Shaw's comments, however, may have prompted an announcement this week that the Department of Transport was in the "final stages" of preparing legislation to ban the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving. This is development in the planning since 2002 and we have had many vague promises from the Department of Transport before.
It's fair to say that Cullen has a lot resting on the speed camera plan when the likes of the NSC, usually supportive of Government, are ready to question the commitment to improving safety on the roads.
So what is promised and what is the thinking behind it? The report that prompted the Minister to go for the privatised camera option was done by a working group set up at the end of 2003, comprising Department of Transport and Department of Justice officials, gardai and the National Roads Authority.
"The objective of a safety camera project is to reduce the number of speed-related collisions and therefore save lives," the group's final report states. It will do this by increasing compliance with limits, by slowing vehicles at black-spots and acting as a deterrent to driving at excessive speeds, according to the report.
What this means is up to 600 roving speed cameras, probably mounted in vans and often hidden from view to catch as many speeders as possible. The report says most checks should be carried out at weekends, especially between midnight and 3am, when the highest number of accidents occur, and that they should take place on national and rural roads, as opposed to dual carriageways and motorways. This will not take place until Cullen brings forward legislation in the autumn.
The working group report states that "the public must accept that the project is genuinely to increase road safety and is carried out for the proper reasons". It adds that "the perception must be that safety cameras save lives and do not relate to revenue collection".
Many, it seems, already see cameras as a money-spinner rather than a life-saving tool. A recent survey by Britain's Institute of Advanced Motorists showed that 48 per cent of motorists thought speed cameras were mostly, or all, about saving lives, while 45 per cent said they purely for revenue generation. There is no reason that this almost 50-50 split is any different here.
The survey suggests that 76 per cent of drivers wanted roadside cameras painted yellow which doesn't bode well for the plan to hide most of our speed checks. Martin Cullen will remember the public outcry when private clampers over-enforced the law on members of the public.
He also knows how long the public can bear a grudge, especially when money is wasted on radical plans. The €25 million cost of the camera project over five years is only half of the €52 million spent on the ill-fated e-voting system developed when Cullen was at the Department of Environment.
ROAD DEATH statistics will be Cullen's second and most testing hurdle. A dramatic drop in deaths will put paid to any negativity but a continuation of the high rate will see more criticism from safety chiefs, insurance bodies, voters and opposition parties.
According to the NRA's most recent survey on road collisions, most fatal or injury collisions occur on straight roads in dry conditions, with the driver at fault in more than 85 per cent of cases. It says that the most common factor (35 per cent) in two-vehicle fatal crashes was a driver driving on the wrong side of the road.
"Other action" was cited as the main cause in 29 per cent of cases and "exceeded safe speed limit" was in third place on 22 per cent.
So, while an obsession with the "speed kills" mantra would be foolish, there is some evidence that reducing speeds will cut deaths, if the widespread introduction of cameras slows motorists down.
Cullen's new team of cameramen, however, will not catch inappropriately high speeds at accident blackspots. For example the camera will not stop somebody rounding a bad bend at an unsafe 70km/h where the limit is 80km/h. It can, of course, catch a responsible driver doing a safe 100km/h on a wide and straight regional road where the limit is inappropriately low.
The evidence from other countries on speed cameras varies. Britain, with one of the EU's best road safety records, has 6,500 cameras. But London has decided to hold off any new camera locations until crucial research on cameras' effectiveness is published by University College London. Safety groups dismiss opposition to cameras, but Paul Smith of anti-speed camera group Safe Speed says cameras have been "an unmitigated disaster".
"In the speed camera era traffic policing has declined markedly," says Smith. "You have accidents because drivers make mistakes. It's a matter of psychology."
France has changed its road safety policy over the past 12 months. In the 12 months to the end of June, 5,144 died on the roads - France has long had one of Europe's worst road safety records. This figure compares to 8,000 deaths in 2002 and the huge reduction coincides with the roll-out of new cameras as well as a crackdown on bad driving and greater enforcement. The number of cameras has jumped from only 100 less than two years ago to about 1,000. However, Transport Minister Dominique Perben said there would be no additional cameras on French roads in 2006 - 1,000 was sufficient.
In Spain, some 500 cameras are being installed on motorways. "We're going to have to take away thousands and thousands of driver licences," the director of Spain's transport department, Pere Navarro, was quoted as saying last week.
It would be hard for Martin Cullen to make the same promise, considering the backlog in people who are trying to sit tests to get their licences, but a French style slump in deaths to coincide with the camera roll-out would keep the National Safety Council off his back. At least for the moment.