Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their opening statements. We are all conscious of what happened over the summer. All of us who use the roads are aware of the issues, particularly concerning young men, which Deputy O'Rourke mentioned. I drive quite a bit, probably about 1,000 km a week. In my experience, a lot of the time it is the fault of the chancers, the people who come up at speed behind another car, swing out, go around the corner and are gone. These people are reckless and take unnecessary risks. They seem to continue doing so on all kinds of roads. It does not have to be a very good road. In fact, very often it is the back roads and by-roads where this happens because they consider them to be quieter with less traffic on them. I often wonder how do we get the message to these people. Not only do these people have accidents themselves but they often cause accidents as well. I am aware of the speed limit reduction proposal. Certainly on many of our roads, we need to see the speed limits reduced. However, I think a law has to be proportionate to be obeyed. There are many quiet country roads with an 80 km/h speed limit where 50 km/h would be more appropriate. However, there are some country roads where 80 km/h is appropriate. There needs to be a balanced approach to ensure we do not have a situation where people see a speed limit, which they consider to be crazy and, as a result, break it. It has to be proportionate. We need to be cautious to make sure that happens. I am not sure how that will be done, perhaps through the local authorities, but it certainly needs to happen.

One of the biggest issues we come across is that people are continually reading and sending text messages while they are driving. At least while answering a call on hands-free, a driver can still in concentrate on the road. More and more people are inclined to read and send texts while driving. As technology has improved and mobile phones have become almost an extension of ourselves, it is more predominant.

Technology has been mentioned and the idea of having static cameras. We need to increase the roll-out of these. Regarding the mobile phone issue, surely there is technology available that could tell if a mobile phone is moving. Can technology be applied to the phone that it will not send or receive text messages? Perhaps there are things like this that can be examined. That would be helpful.

Drugs testing is vital but I have a concern. Someone mentioned to me recently that some people take medication such as painkillers very often. Will this be considered? There needs to be reassurance that these particular testing mechanisms will not cause difficulties in respect to that.