Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State will be glad to hear that I will not be taking the full allocation of speaking time because a lot of this has been covered already but I welcome that I am able to contribute something to this debate.

At the outset, I recognise the terrible loss that has been suffered by families over many years and decades, but particularly in the last three to five years. Since Covid, we have seen some horrific accidents on the roads and terrible loss of young life in particular, which is something we all want to try to combat.

In his outline, the Minister of State spoke at length about the different implementations he is hoping to bring in with this Bill, some of the reasons he sees for the increasing road accident figures and the difficulty in trying to combat road injuries and road deaths. We can all do a quick flick of what we might think is contributing to that. Carelessness is a big part of it and speed is most definitely implicated, as well as road quality. I would also think driver skill and experience are now a major part of it, with more people on the roads and people driving more powerful cars. There is also the issue of intoxication and the drinking of alcohol, with people falling asleep and so on. It is all down to the management of the individual driver and the car they are in, and understanding that when they are driving, they are also responsible for the other road users they come into contact with, not just themselves and their passengers.

The Minister of State spoke about the nub of the Bill, which is enforcement and slowing overall speed rates, which he sees as the panacea for all of this. I do not agree with him wholeheartedly on that, although it certainly has a role to play. Members have already outlined that people are breaking the speed limits regardless of how low they are and without adequate enforcement, it does not really matter what the posted limit is for people who are going to break the limits.

I also point out to the Minister of State that there is an issue with car quality. In the NCT, we have tried to basically make it mandatory for people to have their cars checked and within that, for older cars, we are really targeting the issues of tyres, suspension, steering geometry and, most importantly, braking systems. That is supposed to be picked up at the NCT but it is only relevant if people are doing the test. Second, the Minister of State will be aware of the delays of six or eight months at some NCT centres. I guarantee the Minister of State that if we walked out to the Leinster House car park today, we would find a couple of cars with tyres that are beyond the minimum legal limit and people are probably not aware of that and are waiting to get it picked up at the NCT.

Another point concerns young drivers. When I started driving, which is more than a few years ago, I and my two brothers were lucky enough to get a banger that could not go past 30 mph. We all learned to drive in that car and we were not a danger to anybody because, to be honest, we were nearly able to be passed out by a guy on a bicycle. It is now the case that if someone wants to buy a young driver an older car, something to slow them down, it cannot be done because they cannot get insured on it. The insurance companies since 2015 have been forcing young drivers into cars that are capable of much higher speeds than the cars people had 20 or 30 years ago, when they started driving. This is not being looked at. Once those kids get their driving test, they are entitled to drive on their own and to put their family and friends into that car and basically, in many cases, they are not being monitored after that. Passing a driving test does not confer any great ability on drivers in terms of responsibility to passengers and other road users, as we see constantly across the country, weekend after weekend. The Minister of State needs to look at this issue.

There are inordinate waiting lists for driving test centres. I cannot understand how it takes so long – up to a year in some cases – for people to receive a test. In terms of the testing itself, I am not sure that what we are testing is requisite for modern driving standards. I know that if people drive for companies in the UK, they will be sent for driver testing. Many of the large pharma companies in the UK send people to speed pans to teach them how to drive a car in the wet and understand the road conditions, the temperature of the road, the water on the road, the visibility at nighttime and the stopping distance they have to exercise when the road surface is different. None of this has been spoken about in terms of driving tests in this country.

We are talking about more enforcement at the roadside. When was the last time the Minister of State saw a garda checking the tread depth of a tyre of a car stopped at the roadside? One of the very first things that would tell us if a car is fit for the road is the quality of the tyres. I believe that should be mandatory at every checkpoint. It used to be done many years ago, although I am not sure if the Minister of State will remember it. Years ago, gardaí used to carry a depth gauge in their pocket to check the cars they stopped. I am not sure if this is done any more but, to be frank, it should be re-introduced. It is similar with regard to lights and even a suspension test is possible at the roadside just by pressing up and down on the four corners of a car. It is not that difficult to do. I guarantee that if it is done with a random number of cars out on the main roads, we would be amazed at the number of cars that are driving with poor suspensions.

There is a lot to be said about the safety systems of modern cars. I will relate a story to the Minister of State. I was recently travelling with somebody in a car and when we went to take the exit off a motorway, he forgot to put on the indicator. His car had a system for lane changing and, basically, as he went left, the car corrected right when another driver was coming up on the inside. We did not have a collision but we could have done. It is similar with emergency braking in that a modern car has a crash prevention system that will jam on the ABS, and if somebody else is driving behind, it could cause a collision. These are all things that we need to speak about with regard to doing tests.

We need to target younger drivers. I heard other speakers say that some people have been driving for a long time without doing a driving test and that may well be the case. However, statistically, they are involved in very few accidents because by virtue of their experience, older people tend to drive more slowly as a rule and get into less trouble. However, we need to do something about the culture among young drivers. Funnily enough, the young drivers I know would certainly not take a drink and drive because it is abhorrent to them but the same people would quite happily get into a car with four of their pals and belt down the road at 80 miles an hour while trying to impress them with the music going. We need to try to impress on young people the damage that is doing. It is heartbreaking every weekend to hear about these accidents that we know are largely preventable, except in exceptional cases. It is down to driver behaviour, watching the roads, having experience, driving a decent car and remembering that you are not infallible and not unbreakable. We need to get that message out there.

With regard to reducing speed limits, I can understand how that works around urban areas. My own city of Waterford has something like 6 or 8 miles of orbital dual-lane road where the speed limit is now 60 km/h. Drivers can then go out onto the primary road, the N25 from Waterford to Cork, and do 100 km/h in a single lane which has not been updated or had roadworks done in 30 years. This Minister for Transport has spent buttons on it - just €4 million in the lifetime of this Government. On that road, people can do 100 km/h, although it is going to be reduced to 80 km/h. This means that if I get into my car to drive to Cork, it will take me probably an hour and 45 minutes to do what is less than an 80-mile journey. We are putting that difficulty onto regional users, salespeople and so on, given there is an impact on all of them.

6 o’clock

I am not saying I do not approve of it. I would like to see how it works. We need to consider what is being done regarding roads, road markings, road coverage and speed limits but, in addition, we have to sort out the accident black spots.

On the issue of Gatso vans, every other weekend a van can be seen in an area on the Dunmore road in Waterford where the speed limit is 30 km/h. As a result of the traffic and all that, very few people exceed the speed limit there. However, many of those who do not know the van is often located there may be doing more than 30 km/h, which is nothing in terms of speed on a good road, and that van is there clocking up revenue all day. I am nearly 60 years of age and I cannot remember a fatality on that road. I cannot even remember a bad accident on it. That is where the Gatso van parks up, yet I can think of ten accident black spots where there is no such van located simply because there is less footfall of traffic there. That is what the operators of the vans are targeting. That is what happens when a system is not about roads enforcement or road safety but, rather, collecting tax and giving a franchise to people to get plenty of fish in a barrel. I ask the Minister of State to look at that issue in the context of what he is proposing.

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