Between 1 per cent and 3 per cent of GDP globally is lost through motor accidents, and the Irish Exchequer would receive a significant payback from investing in improved road safety, a conference in Dublin heard yesterday.
John Dawson, of the European Road Assessment Centre, said that a life could be saved for the investment of less than €100,000.
He said the figure of 1 per cent to 3 per cent of GDP being lost as a result of road accidents had been produced by the World Bank, but the same would apply in Ireland.
In the case of a man aged 22 left in a vegetative state following a crash, the State would be paying for his care for 60 years.
"At European level, political and professional leaders do not understand that the most effective investments they can make is improving the standards of the roads."
Mr Dawson said there had been significant advances in car-safety features and in driver education, but the outstanding issue was the standard of roads.
There was a need to apply what was known about the introduction of safety fencing, improved layout of junctions and pedestrian crossings.
He said there was a need to make roads safe for the official speed limits in operation. Only motorways were sufficiently safe for the official speed limits allowed.
He said the new two-plus-one roads were the safest in the world. These provided motorway-standard safety features for regional roads.
He praised the Irish authorities for being one of the first to pilot this type of road.
Forbes Vigors, of the Tramore House regional road design office, said the two-plus-one roads were being piloted in a number of areas around the country.
They were similar to existing "climbing lanes' with the addition of a barrier.
"A two-plus-one road consists of two lanes in one direction and one lane in the opposite direction.
"The two-lane section, which provides a safe overtaking zone, alternates with a one-lane section at intervals of 2km approximately. The traffic streams are separated by a safety barrier system," Mr Vigors said.
It was hoped that such roads would reduce the level of head-on and crossover collisions. He said head-on collisions accounted for 20 per cent of all crashes on two-lane roads. Around 37 per cent of these accidents were fatal.
Meanwhile, a leading Australian road safety expert expressed concern at the standard of non-national roads in Ireland.
Nial Finegan, originally from Dublin, said the non-national roads had not kept pace with the demands placed on them.
