ROAD SAFETY Authority chief executive Noel Brett cautioned against a rush to judgment about the circumstances surrounding the Co Kerry crash and said vehicle failure rather than any question of driver error might have caused the accident.
However, he said there were issues relating to the deaths of many young people in car crashes, which would be addressed in a new graduated licence system to be announced next week.
Mr Brett said he was not referring specifically to the deaths of four teenagers in Co Kerry, or to the deaths of eight men in a crash in Co Donegal in July.
He said many parents were prepared to devote long hours to helping their children with pursuits such as music, Irish dancing or sport, yet would allow their child to drive a car without adequate preparation or supervision. “We have to move beyond the days of parents just giving their child a car, providing insurance and then lying in bed at 3am fretting,” he said.
“There needs to be a greater level of parental responsibility in relation to the issue of road safety. It is not just about young people, it is about parents too. People do not take learning to drive seriously enough.”
Mr Brett said measures to reduce the alcohol limit for learner, novice and professional drivers to 20mg per 100ml of blood from 80mg/100ml had already been passed by the Oireachtas.
In addition, a new learner permit process has been introduced to replace the old provisional licence system. Under the new system you cannot sit a driving test without having a learner permit for six months, and learner drivers must be accompanied by someone with a full driving licence for at least two years.
The graduated licence system is likely to include a stipulation that learner drivers get a set number of hours of lessons from a qualified driving instructor and keep a logbook of practice that must be signed by a qualified driver.
The measure will not include curfews, which the authority believes would penalise law-abiding young drivers in rural areas who depend on the car to work late at night.
Mr Brett said there was “no magic bullet” that would prevent tragedies such as these, but such incidents had to be seen in the context of a drop of one-third in the number of young people between the ages of 17 and 34 dying on Irish roads in the last decade.
Kerry councillor Michael Healy-Rae said something would have to be done to stop so many young people dying on the roads, but he said the cause of many of these accidents was not drink-driving.
“The Road Safety Authority is obsessed with drink-driving. It is not drink-related that is causing these enormous amounts of death and heartbreak,” he said.
“It is speed, or the feeling that these young people think they are invincible. These are the things that need to be addressed. It is a bigger issue than drink and driving.”
