Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am going to ask a few questions myself. Apologies, but I had a previous engagement that I could not get out of. I thank Deputy Duncan Smith for taking the Chair. I read the witnesses' opening statements in advance. I apologise if any of the points I raise have been raised already. It tends to happen at committees regularly. I am usually here for the whole meeting.

The opening statements were all very good but there was not an awful lot of new information. It was good for me. A lot of it I already knew and updated figures were provided. I think the point we have all made, and one that I have heard since I have been back, is that one road death is too many. Each road death, in human loss terms, is priceless and enormous. The witnesses have also said that it costs between €3 million and €4 million. That is an enormous amount of money. We have in excess of 100 road deaths this year and I know money gets swallowed up very easily in road projects, but we could do a lot with €300 million or €400 million to improve driver performance and education, road surfaces, junctions, bad roads, the cutting of hedges and sorting out deer. Whatever it happens to be, there is so much we could be doing as opposed to spending it on fatalities, which are absolutely priceless. As the witnesses have said, there is an outlay there.

Again, I think all of us tend to focus on fatalities, but the national rehabilitation hospital is not too far from where I live and I know there are many people who have enormously life-changing injuries. There are cases of full paralysis, the loss of use of limbs and the loss of limbs. We all need to realise that every time we get into a car, we are driving a potentially dangerous weapon. I do not want to overstate that but cars, particularly bigger cars, can be dangerous. The bigger the car, the safer you might be inside it, but the more damage you may inflict on whatever you might hit. There was a time when I was growing up when everybody seemed to be in Ford Fiestas and Fiat 127s. Little cars were hitting little cars. Now much bigger cars are hitting much bigger cars. The impact can be that much greater because a much bigger mass is hitting a much bigger mass.

One of the things I want to touch on is why, at this stage, we do not place more emphasis on the technological aspects. There was a time when we could not track anyone doing anything. Now, we all have mobile phones. Everyone is being tracked every minute of the day, everywhere we go. I drive that six-minute stretch - and I know it is exactly a six-minute stretch - on the M7. I have to make sure I am still in it. The big cameras are there telling me when I am in it and out of it, and I know that compliance rates have gone from 60-something percent to 97%. Why do we not have these between almost every junction on our motorway network? I am not convinced the motorways are the problem, but there are large volumes of people doing very significant speeds. You can be doing very close to the target of 120 km/h. You might even be doing 120 km/h or 121 km/h and there are a lot of cars going past you, pretty much all the time. I do not do a lot of motorway driving. I try to cycle here as much as I can and I live relatively close to here. When I am on motorways, I see a lot of people driving a good bit over the speed limit.

I know Professor Cusack is very familiar with the Stillorgan dual carriageway. Most of the witnesses will know the road outside UCD between RTÉ and Stillorgan village. There is a 60 km/h speed limit, yet we have these boreens with grass down the middle of them that still have 80 km/h signs on them. I could never get my head around that. I know it might not be physically possible to do it, but I do not know how anyone ever thought it was okay to have a sign up saying that. I just wonder how much engagement the RSA has with the Garda and the local authorities. I am the former chair of a transportation and strategic policy committee in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. I know about engagement with Garda on double yellow lines, speed limits and putting in various junctions, traffic lights and all the rest of it. Séamus Brennan was the Deputy for my area who served as Minister for Transport. I recall talking to him about road deaths. He was asked if he was sure about introducing penalty points and was told it was a very brave, courageous and mad decision. He brought in the three-offences policy and, very rapidly, the number of road deaths and injuries fell significantly. There are many more offences now and I get that. It is not that we are accepting it now, but we do not seem to have the same energy and vigour for tackling the issue.

There are a lot of people who are driving too fast. Why do we not have technology in all cars? I know there are car insurance companies that do use technology. A friend of mine, whose children now have a car between them, told me he gets a report on his phone notifying him there have been no infringements and nothing bad has happened. I think the company is called Boxymo. There are other companies doing it, but I am just trying to advertise them. Why are we not incentivising people to have technology in their cars that tells them when they are going too fast and which slows them down when they drive into towns, villages and housing estates? That technology must exist. If we had a gadget in most people's cars that prevented them from going above 120 km/h and slowed them down to 80 km/h, 60 km/h and 50 km/h going into urban areas, we would not need all these enforcers standing at the side of roads and the speed vans. We would not need that if we had the technology in the cars. We all have technology in our mobile phones. Why are we not pushing that more, technology-wise? We know the average speed cameras works. Maybe they are very expensive and perhaps that is why they are not being rolled out, but if the technology was in the cars we would not need to be building ramps all over the place to slow people down. Most people argue that ramps are not particularly good for the suspension and the light settings. We are building ramps all over the place to slow people down when in fact you could drive in, turn off a certain road onto another road and slow down. Is the technology there and can it be harnessed? Why are we not pushing technology a lot more? In his opening statement, Professor Cusack referenced alcohol interlock technology. Could we not have skin sensors on steering wheels that detect the alcohol level in people's systems from the night before, or whatever it is, and prevent them from driving? Is that all too expensive? Why do we not do it?