Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I will try to finish before my time has concluded. I want to speak in this debate, not because it is part of my brief but because every two or three weeks I have raised on the Order of Business a variety of issues on road safety. It is worth stating that a great deal must be done. One of the most terrifying facts is that back in the 1970s, the figure for road fatalities was in the mid-600s. I am not stating this as a means to dilute the need for action but if we had continued on that route we would have figures of approximately 1,000 now.

Roads have improved because of investment. Cars have dramatically improved because of technology and NCTs. We are now trying to get the drivers to improve. That may well turn out to be the most difficult aspect because changing human beings is not easy.

Has the Government done any serious studies on quality assurance in driving tests? The fluctuation in failure rates throughout the country is well beyond what one should expect in any properly standardised system. I do not believe it is because the drivers in one centre are dramatically worse than the drivers in another. Like my party leader, I have no great patience with trade unions which attempt to avoid that. Everybody else working in education must go through a range of comparative studies, such as the way in which the leaving certificate is evaluated. There ought to be an appeals system. In every other area of training and education a person who fails has a process of appeal. By all means impose a charge €150 to discourage fatuous appeals but let us have an appeals system.

I want to repeat what Senator Browne mentioned, namely, that fatuous unenforced speed limits are worse than no speed limits. The classic example which comes up over and over again is the Naas Road. A parked Garda car in some areas on that road would slow people down. Nothing is ever done and thousands of vehicles surge along that stretch of roadway at 80 km/h or 90 km/h, many of them heavy goods vehicles. They are breaking the law as it would stand anywhere, as they are not supposed to drive faster than 80 km/h.

I have no idea what type of compact, unofficial or otherwise, has been entered into by the heavy goods industry and the State. The vast majority of heavy goods vehicles are permanently breaking the law, as the NRA survey indicates. I have driven in a queue of traffic, with a Garda car in the middle of it and heavy goods vehicles in front and behind all doing 100 km/h. Even with the Garda car in the middle nothing was being enforced.

There is a series of issues like the failure of enforcement. The greatest deterrence for people and incentive for them to observe the law is the prospect of being caught. There is no point in arguing that people have a responsibility, which they clearly have. We have a fundamental need for people to understand that if they do something wrong, there is a likelihood of being caught. There is a confident belief held by many people in this State that this is not so. According to the NRA, heavy goods vehicles represent 3% of all registered vehicles but are involved in 10% of all fatal accidents. That is the real issue I wanted to discuss.

Another issue concerns gender. The driving test failure rates are consistently higher for women than men. The insurance figures show that claims by women are far lower than those by men. That again indicates that something is wrong with the driving test mechanism. The driving test mechanism should at least appraise the skills that show up in real drivers. It appears that women show those skills better, as the insurance companies have the figures as evidence and charge women less because they make and are the cause of fewer claims.

Why do women fail the test in greater numbers than men? It is caused by a belief that there is a degree of assurance and confidence that driving testers will expect and which they will get from brash young men but not from more cautious young women? Therefore young men pass the test and are more likely to crash, but young women fail and are safer.

I am familiar with a glorious anomaly of a test centre which has a sign indicating that there should be no waiting there. This means that when a person is being tested he or she cannot have somebody to accompany them because such a person would have nowhere to wait. Therefore, the person being tested is required to drive there on their own, in breach of the law. There are different anomalies, and the issue comes back to a willingness to enforce the law to its full extent.