Mary Henry (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy de Valera. I am delighted that the Government is taking an increased interest in road safety. That so many people have been killed on our roads in recent years is appalling and depressing.

I am glad the Road Safety Authority is to be given responsibility for research into road safety. We have been far too casual about this aspect of the matter in recent years. Not much of the considerable amount of road safety research that has been undertaken in Ireland and other countries has been brought to the attention of consumers. We need to tell consumers about the increased risks, not only for drivers and their passengers but also for other road users, which are associated with the use of certain types of vehicles, particularly sports utility vehicles, which have become very popular in Ireland. A considerable amount of international research has indicated that those who drive such vehicles feel they are safer than they would be if they were driving other types of vehicle. There is nothing to substantiate that feeling, however. Not only are the drivers of sports utility vehicles no safer, but they represent far more of a risk to other road users such as pedestrians.

Many reports have highlighted the danger presented to children when they are struck by vehicles with bull bars. Children are small and therefore less visible to the drivers of sports utility vehicles. As such vehicles are much higher than other vehicles, they strike the entire child which means there is no chance of a child being thrown onto the bonnet. It is a serious issue. A woman in Australia who killed a five year old child while driving a sports utility vehicle — she drove over the child without realising she had struck the child — is spearheading a campaign to ban such vehicles from being used within a certain distance of schools.

Dr. Ciaran Simms, who is a lecturer in mechanical engineering at Trinity College Dublin, and Professor Desmond O'Neill, who is the college's associate professor of medical gerontology, have published a survey, based on information provided by hospitals, of the fate of older pedestrians who are struck by sports utility vehicles. They have found that older people suffer much worse injuries if they are struck by such vehicles because they are usually struck on the upper leg, the pelvis or the chest. Such collisions cause severe internal injuries and are much more likely to lead to death. When people purchase sports utility vehicles, I do not think they understand they are choosing to drive a vehicle that is much more likely to cause serious damage to their fellow road users. It would be a good idea to make the observations of Dr. Simms and Professor O'Neill generally known to consumers.

The risk of serious injury to people travelling in a sports utility vehicle is no less than the risk to people travelling in what is described in the United States as a "sedan", or what we would call an ordinary car. A study published by the University of Pennsylvania's school of medicine suggests that parents should be advised that "despite their greater size and weight, SUVs are not any safer than standard sedans for children during a crash because of their increased tendency to roll over". Sports utility vehicles are twice as likely as other cars to roll over as a consequence of their high centre of gravity. The most common circumstances in which children are injured is when they are thrown about, because they are not restrained, when the vehicles in which they are travelling roll over. It should also be noted that side passenger airbags are more likely to inflate in such circumstances. We have known for a long time of the lethal effects on children of front seat passenger airbags. Everyone is advised not to allow any child in the front of a car fitted with an airbag. This survey shows that side airbags also cause extremely serious damage to children. It states that no child under the age of 13 years should be allowed sit in the front seat of a car and that the danger to children in SUVs when unrestrained versus restrained in a rollover crash was of the order of 24.99 and 6.68. That is a huge difference in the injuries one could sustain if one has such a vehicle.

I cannot understand why bull bars have not been removed from cars. I do not see bulls all over the roads of Ireland. I understand they were originally for kangaroos which are also in short supply. Persons driving these cars should be made aware of the dangers to themselves and to other people, pedestrians in particular.