Mary Henry (Independent)

I second the motion.

I welcome the Minister of State and congratulate him and his officials on bringing forward the penalty points system at last because it had been mooted for so long. It seemed that only the thought of the loss of one's licence would improve people's behaviour and that has been shown to work within these three months. I can but hope it will continue.

I have the benefit of having seen in today's edition of the Irish Examiner an article by Cormac O'Keeffe on a report to be published soon. The statistics are compiled by the National Safety Council and show the alarming fact that trucks are involved in 20% of fatal crashes. This is the first time I have been able to find that out because it has been difficult to get details about exactly what happened in crashes. I have tried and been unable to get them. Therefore, it is wonderful that we are at last getting some of the figures. One frequently heard on the news that a truck was involved in a crash and now we have statistics from the NSC that show this is the case.

The figures show that 494 died on roads in crashes involving trucks between 1996 and 2001 out of a total of 2,622 road fatalities. Of those 494 deaths, 72 were truck drivers, amounting to 15% of the total. This is understandable because one is much more protected driving a truck than in another motor vehicle, on a motorbike or walking. Some 85% of fatalities were other road users. Car users accounted for 51%; pedestrians, 19% – which is very high – motorcyclists, 7%, and cyclists, 6%. Mr. Pat Costello, chief executive of the National Safety Council, points out that it is not saying truck drivers were responsible for these accidents but that they were involved in a high number of fatal crashes which most survived, although 85% of the others involved in the incident were killed.