Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Yes. Perhaps the speed checks were somewhere else. I have this feeling that there may well have been a response to the volume of paperwork about which gardaí complained would be associated with this. The response may be to carry out fewer checks. I do not know, but I invite the Minister to confirm that gardaí are doing a similar number of speed checks under the new regime as they were carrying out before penalty points were implemented. I am astonished that I have not seen a speed check on one of the busiest roads in Ireland and, I hasten to add, I was behaving much more impeccably than I did heretofore.

I have a major concern. A few years ago I looked at the National Road Authority's website for something and came across information on the 1999 survey of various traffic habits, including some of the matters to which the Minister of State referred. I am glad to hear that some improvements have been made in the interim. In 1999, 75% of trucks were found to be in breach of the speed limit. That is a huge number. From my experience as an engineer I am aware that if a vehicle, whether it be a car or a truck, is travelling at 40 mph in a 30 mph zone and is involved in a collision, it is capable of doing 80% more damage. That is not a trivial matter. If a vehicle travels at 60 mph when it should be travelling at 50 mph, it is capable of doing about 45% more damage. These are significant figures. Anybody who imagines that the difference between 30 mph and 40 mph is small is deceiving himself or herself. It is a major difference in terms of the amount of damage that can be done.

The problem was that 75% of trucks were travelling in excess of the speed limit. That is a huge number and it was up from 40% in the previous survey. All of my, admittedly anecdotal, experience over the last three months driving from Dublin to Cork is that virtually no truck drives within the 50 mph speed limit stipulated in the Rules of the Road, the contents of which every learner driver must know before sitting their theory test. That book states that all trucks are prohibited from exceeding 50 mph anywhere in the country and that is apart from their respecting urban area speed limits. I would be surprised if I came across a truck travelling at 50 mph. Anyone who drives on motorways will agree that trucks are travelling at 70 mph, 20 mph above the limit.