MotorsInterview/Noel Brett:Noel Brett accepts that the RSA was damaged by the backtracking on provisional licences, but he is confident their measures will improve road safety, he tells David Labanyi
It has been a long day for Noel Brett, chief executive of the Road Safety Authority (RSA), when he walks into the Westbury Hotel looking for a quiet space to talk. Indeed, it's been a long 15 months for the RSA.
The organisation is just over one year-old but appears to have been chastising and cajoling road users for far longer.
With the exception of policing, road building and maintenance, responsibility for all aspects of road safety has been handed over to its 300 staff.
Brett defines his job as trying to change an ingrained culture, a task he admits will be "a long struggle".
"We are tackling a culture that has been there for generations," he says. "You won't change that overnight and there is no point alienating large numbers of people in the process.
Except, this is exactly what happened during the provisional licence debacle last October.
At the launch of its five-year Road Safety Strategy and a new learner permit system, the RSA and Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey decided to end the provision that allows holders of a second provisional to drive unaccompanied.
The announcement caused panic because the vast majority of the State's 400,000 provisional licence holders ignore this rule.
They reacted angrily to the possibility of being put off the road at such short notice. The ears of local TDs were burned and radio phone-in shows competed to find the motorist who would be most affected by the changes.
The RSA tried to explain that the new rules would be enforced so that drivers would not be "discommoded", but this was an impossible distinction and served only to further confuse drivers who wanted to know whether or not the law would be enforced.
Inevitably, after a Bank Holiday weekend of confusion and controversy, the deadline was pushed out to June 30th next year. It was the RSA's first significant setback. "It was a very difficult time that weekend and the fallout afterwards. It was personally very painful. I took a dent in this," says Brett.
He admits he considered his position that weekend. "I did consider my position. Of course I did.
"I own my part of that decision and the advice given to the Minister. I accepted my part of it and undertook to put it right.
"Although the measure affected only 120,000 drivers on a second provisional, unfortunately on the day, because of a number of circumstances, it played like the world was going to end."
As is his nature, Brett searches for the positives, but accepts the RSA was damaged. "I am sure that weekend didn't do the RSA any good. But, I suspect we will look back on that weekend as one of the turning points in Irish attitudes to learner driving.
"The RSA will take knocks along the way because this is not a popular business. There are things coming down the tracks that will not be popular, but I passionately believe we can improve Ireland's road safety record."
He believes it is a measure of the robustness of the RSA that it could accept a mistake had been made and rectify it quickly.
"We opened and ran the RSA headquarters over that Bank Holiday weekend and dealt with a huge number of applications and queries. Deferring the changes for second provisional drivers was the correct thing to do. But I am disappointed that the road safety strategy got lost that weekend."
As well as interviews and advertising campaigns to get their message across, the RSA is working on a series of partnerships with sporting bodies and cultural events, targeting road safety messages for young men at social events. "We are working on protocols with the IRFU, the FAI and the GAA and this year we were at the ploughing championships."
Brett spends many hours behind the wheel travelling between Dublin and the RSA's headquarters in Ballina a couple of times a week. The holder of an advanced driving certificate (and no penalty points, he hastens to add), Brett admits the standard of driving on Irish roads could be higher.
"I see a lot of people making an effort on seat-belt wearing and drink driving. People getting ready for Christmas parties are thinking differently and planning differently this year compared with two years ago. They are thinking about the next morning," he says.
"But there is also a lot of arrogance and downright dangerous driving, and rudeness and a lack of courtesy to cyclists and pedestrians and by cyclists and pedestrians.
"I believe that the next cohort of drivers we put onto the road, through quality tuition and graduated licencing, will be a different type of driver."
According to Brett, Irish road fatality trends are going in the right direction.
"In 2005, we were killing 33 people a month. Last year it was 30 a month and this year, so far, it is 27 a month."
He is disappointed that weekly Garda drink driving checkpoints still catch between 400 and 450 people each week, but believes the message will get through. "That is a disappointment, but there will come a tipping point."
One trend identified in the new road safety strategy is that the effect of new road safety measures such as penalty points and mandatory alcohol testing wears off after a couple of months.
So, how can these gains be sustained?
"What you find is that with a major intervention you get an immediate drop in deaths before it increases again slightly and then plateaus out.
"When penalty points came in, everyone changed their behaviour. For a variety of reasons the enforcement wasn't sustained - the system wasn't computerised - and very quickly drivers realised they weren't going to be caught and reverted to previous behaviour."
According to Brett the penalty points regime needs to "evolve" to deal with difficulties around notification letters and the application of points to out of State licences. The provisional licence issue aside, it has been a largely successful year for the RSA. Along with the new road safety strategy, it has published the new Rules of the Road, established a learner permit system and set up a register of advanced driving instructors.
Careful consensus underpins much of its work and the road safety strategy, in particular, was built around suggestions from road safety agencies and members of the public alike.
Along with proposing safety ideas, inappropriate speed limits are the biggest gripe, an interesting point just months before a network of speed cameras are put in place.
"It is the one issue that annoys people the most. I have discussed this with the County and City Managers Association and reviewing speed limits is a task in the new strategy. It's a mammoth task, but it needs to be done."
Brett has been talking far longer than planned and what daylight was left has faded. His drive home will now start in rush-hour traffic. So, one last question: does he enjoy the job?
"I couldn't design a better job. This role is not impossible. It's the volumes. There is so much to do and it's about getting it done."