Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I have a question for the delegates from Love 30, who might also address my previous question. A really good graphic that I am sure we have all seen shows that if one is struck by a vehicle at 60 km/h, it results in a fatality in nine out of ten cases. At 50 km/h, there may be a fatality in six out of ten cases. I cannot remember the figure. At 30 km/h, nine out of ten people will survive. I am sure we would all like to see a much higher level of survival than obtains where cars are allowed to drive at such high speeds. The graphic uses a normal-sized car — a saloon with a low bonnet that would have been common — but we have seen a major increase in the use of SUVs, which are monstrous, ridiculous vehicles that are not suitable for the urban environment in any shape or form. Great marketing is done and everybody wants to drive an SUV across a mountain stream with music playing in the background, but that is not the reality of driving one in an urban environment. Does the graphic need to be updated to reflect the weight of an SUV and the height of its bonnet, which, unlike a saloon bonnet, strikes a person in the upper body rather than the legs? Is the fatality rate now much higher, such as ten out of ten at 60 km/h or 50 km/h, bearing in mind that we know the SUV is a common vehicle in the urban setting? That is probably a hard question to answer. I will leave it to Ms O'Dea to answer both of my questions.