Two hundred people died on our roads in the first six months of this year. And the carnage has continued this month. No matter what the precise cause of each fatal crash, much of the overall blame can be laid at the door of a Government that has failed to invest in road safety measures or provide the necessary Garda resources to confront law-breakers and police the system effectively.
Motorists have, indeed, a responsibility to drive safely. And young people are particularly vulnerable. But they need to be properly trained and motivated if their dangerous behaviour on the roads is to change.
Experience in other countries has shown that drivers respond positively to a fear of being caught and punished. The incidence of driving under the influence of drink or drugs falls dramatically. Speeding offences become less frequent. And the rules of the road are generally obeyed. The new chairman of the Road Safety Authority, Gay Byrne, stated the obvious when he said there simply are not enough gardaà available to enforce the traffic laws. That is unlikely to change in the short term.
The Government has tried to look busy. A Road Safety Authority was established. New motoring offences were created. And gardaà may now conduct mandatory breath testing in a targeted manner. But the political will to stamp out drunk/drugs driving remains uncertain. Rather than risk clogging up the courts from increased spot checks, drivers with lower levels of blood alcohol will be given the opportunity of pleading guilty and accepting lesser levels of punishment.
Before the last general election, there were 325,000 provisional licence holders in this State. Since then, the number has risen to 400,000. The Government planned to reduce the number of road deaths to 378 by the end of 2002. But fatalities this year may reach 400. The picture is stark. And the chairman of the National Safety Council, Eddie Shaw, resigned in protest because of the Government's failure to invest in life-saving measures.
The waiting time for driving tests is now about 12 months. And while there has been much talk about introducing emergency measures to deal with the situation, progress is painfully slow. Even if action is taken, we will still have the outrageous situation where motorists who fail basic competency tests can drive away from the testing centre, unaccompanied. Having presided over this dysfunctional system for years, the Government is now transferring responsibility to a Road Safety Authority. It cannot, however, walk away from its own administrative failures.