Sir, - This week sees the advent of the National Car Test with a fanfare of claims for road "safety" and environmental "protection". However, there is an alternative perspective on the "benefits" of the NCT. According to official statistics, vehicle factors are cited as having possibly contributed to only 1 per cent of fatal and injurious accidents.
The driver is cited as having been a factor in as many as 75 per cent of cases. In general, speed is thought to be a factor in 80 per cent of fatal crashes. So what might be achieved by tightening up on braking performance, tyre quality, engine-tuning, suspension and road-holding performance? A brief literature search at my local university library yields some interesting facts.
One reads of a study showing that if drivers are given cars with improved braking performance they will adjust their behaviour accordingly. The style of driving becomes more risky, lane-changing becomes faster and more frequent, and reduced following distances are used. The net result is that there is no change in the number of accidents. Elsewhere is a study in which drivers were given cars with special, high-grip tyres. These drivers then chose to increase the speeds at which they took corners.
Such studies suggest that the NCT will have no positive effect for people inside cars. If, however, the test tends to promote a general increase in driving speeds, this will have a negative effect for anyone outside of a car. It is probably more accurate to view compulsory vehicle testing as an indirect support introduced in large industrial economies for the protection of indigenous motor manufacturers by increasing market turnover for both spare parts and new cars.
This is evident when you consider the perfectly serviceable second-hand cars that we import from Japan. These cars come to our market as a direct result of the stringent Japanese vehicle-testing criteria. I might point out that the members of the Society for the Irish Motor Industry do not manufacture any cars. The SIMI is a trade organisation whose members sell products imported from other countries. I would also point out that the foreign cars sold legally by the SIMI are all designed to grossly violate the national maximum allowable speed of 70 m.p.h. - Yours, etc., Shane Foran,
Road Safety Officer, Galway Cycling Campaign, William Street West, Galway.