Chairman of the Road Safety Authority Gay Byrne has said he would be "disenchanted" if the Government does not use the Budget to fulfil a-five-year-old promise to finance privatised speed cameras.
Addressing an international conference on road safety at Croke Park today, Mr Byrne told delegates people thought the Road Safety Authority "had a fetish about speed cameras" while they were in fact only one of some 126 individual actions in the Road Safety Strategy.
Mr Byrne warned against "complacency" within road safety and said provision for the camera scheme had been promised "five years ago, then it was four then three then two".
"If not put into effect, they will most assuredly cost lives and the speed cameras are part and parcel," he said.
The conference also heard from Dr Declan Bedford of the Health Services Executive that that alcohol was a factor in 32 per cent of a study of some 1,105 fatal collisions between 2003 and 2005.
Dr Bedford said the Irish were second only to Luxembourg in a comparison of annual alcohol consumption, based on litres per person. He added that statistics for Luxembourg could not be relied upon as residents of other European states bought alcohol there to bring home. "We are the biggest bingers," he concluded.
Dr Bedford's study also revealed that pensioners of 75 years with a blood alcohol limit above the current legal limit were significantly represented among drivers killed in road crashes. They were more likely to be killed than drivers in the 45 to 64 years age group, according to the study.
In 2007 by October 13th, 263 people had been killed in road accidents while this year there have been 227 deaths.
