Mr. Conor Faughnan:

Senator Brennan raised an important issue in regard to schools. This issue is usually best managed at a local level because no two school gates are the same. I would be reluctant to install speed bumps at all schools. While schools are only open for 180 or 190 days per year for a few hours every day, speed bumps are a permanent fixture. I am aware of certain locations in which residents have appealed for speed bumps to be installed only to call for their removal a few weeks later. They can be disruptive and cause a thumping noise as vehicles traverse them. They are not great in terms of creating a pleasant environment. I do not know how much it would cost to install speed bumps outside every school in Ireland but one could purchase a considerable number of speed cameras for the same amount. Flashing blue lights and speed cameras are great mechanisms for slowing drivers down and inducing them to concentrate.

Deputy Tom Fleming's point about the general conditions of Irish roads is possibly true but I remind him of our geography. We have 96,000 km of roads in this country, or four times longer than Holland's roads on a per capitabasis. We will never be able to connect every Irish village to a top quality road. We must improve the world in which we live.

Deputy Brendan Griffin made a number of important points about improving road safety. I agree that our standards are much higher than heretofore. In the 1970s, we would have been triumphant if 195 people had been killed in one year but that is a disgraceful figure today. While it is clearly positive that we have halved the number of road deaths over a ten year period, it might sober us up to learn that every OECD country has made similar gains. This is mostly due to a determination to reduce the number of road deaths and a recognition that every road death is unnecessary. There is no such thing as an accident. It is a crash. An accident absolves people of blame by implying it could not be changed but a crash is something we can control. Almost ten years ago Sweden adopted a vision zero policy which stated that the only acceptable number of road deaths is zero. It is not as important to make progress in absolute terms as to ensure that we are ahead of the curve. Are we doing better than other developed nations or are we falling behind them? When we look at our performance in isolation it is easy to pat ourselves on the back, but there are similar improvements in all developed nations, with the exception of the United States. The rate of improvement in the United States varies considerably from state to state. Famously, the US does not have a federal seat belt law and some states do not have local seat belt laws. In many ways the US is behind the curve and it has a per capitadeath rate that European countries would regard as unacceptable.

I agree that politicians often balk at passing what they regard as draconian laws. I appeal to the members of this committee to have the courage to defend road safety laws even when they mean they will have a hard time at the church gates when they are seeking votes next April. The road safety community needs their support because they are the only people who can give effect to policies that will save lives.

I am not a fan of alco-locks or speed limiters in most circumstances. There are almost no speed related collisions between cars travelling faster than 130 km/h. A car can cruise at 130 km/h on a motorway. That is too fast but in all likelihood it is probably very safe, whereas the same car can be lethal if it is driven through a village at 70 km/h.

In regard to cars and top speed advertisements, I agree that we have moved the mindset considerably. In the "Mad Men" era, advertisers sold cars by draping a scantily clad female across the bonnet and boasting about how quickly the car went from stopping to 60 km/h. That does not tend to happen any longer because the typical car buyer is different. Females are likely to be an influential voice in the purchasing decision and buyers are more likely to inquire about a car's crash test star rating than about its top speed. I have always been curious about why car manufacturers never boast about how quickly a car goes from 60 km/h to a stop, although that is a more relevant statistic. This is partially a cultural issue but I think social values are moving in the correct direction.