Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher. He and I have often discussed safety at sea rather than safety on the roads. In any event, this debate is very welcome and I am pleased to contribute to it.

I echo the point made by the previous speaker about young people. As a parent I believe the majority of young people are very responsible and tuned in. They know it can sometimes be difficult to get insurance, even with a full licence. In the event, they value and treasure it much more than I did when I was a teenager, for example. They tend to be very responsible and it is unfair to tar everybody with the same brush. My experience indicates too that the younger generation of drivers tends to be better trained.

As a Seanad Member who probably has the furthest distance to travel to this House — up to six hours' driving — I experience a good deal of ignorance and bad manners on the road from people of my age or older. They do not indicate, overtake on double white lines or continuous single white lines and in general display bad manners which contribute overall to accidents. We should not lose sight of the statistics outlined by the Minister of State, Deputy Dick Roche, to the effect that last year, despite all the media exposure, we had the lowest number of road deaths in this country in 40 years.

It is difficult to credit that we had a worse record in the 1960s with one third of the traffic. Coming from a rural area in particular, I am conscious that we have, perhaps, one of the worst systems of public transport imaginable. When I was a child there used to be a train going to Bantry, but it no longer operates. People have to drive to work. I know we have made many improvements, but usage of cars among the public is probably one of the highest relative statistics in Europe, and that should be acknowledged. We have reams of legislation on the Statute Book and enforcement is probably the key. More of this needs to happen.

We hear much about drink driving and certainly this is a serious contributor to road accidents, although not the only cause. There is a question too of speed, inexperience and human error. As a Member of the Oireachtas I have become increasingly concerned that in the past five to seven years drugs have been a contributor in some of the major collisions. It will not show up in a blood alcohol test whether someone has had cannabis, cocaine or a more dangerous drug. We should be attuned to ensuring that people involved in road traffic accidents are tested for drugs as well as drink. If that were done I am confident the statistics would show that drugs contribute to accidents and serious carnage on our roads much more than we realise.

As someone who travels a good deal by car, unfortunately, what bugs me are the easy options being taken by the Garda as regards speed traps. A recent example I came across was in Castletownbere where gardaí set up checkpoints on the old 30 mph, now 50 km/h, road exiting from the town. There are two or three kilometres of straight wide road and very little traffic. I was a victim of a speed check myself in that situation, put my hands up and just accepted my responsibility. Fortunately I have only two penalty points. The garda said that she had caught 33 people that day in that situation. There was no accident and a fine straight stretch of road.

The gardaí should instead be watching for situations like the one I encountered recently on a pretty bad road with a continuous white line. A person of unknown nationality or sex whistled past me certainly doing 80 mph. One could see the shudder and shake of the vehicle as it passed.

Instead of the Garda saying it had 500 speed traps in place last weekend which caught 8,000 people who got penalty points, it should focus its energies elsewhere. Such statistics do not enhance or help as regards road traffic accidents. Catching somebody doing 36 mph where there is a 30 mph limit constitutes a soft target. While it merits brownie points for the garda concerned it contributes very little to the strategy of reducing road deaths.

Speed is certainly an issue and there is sufficient legislation covering this as well. One of the key reasons I wanted to contribute to this debate was because of something I raised in the House three weeks ago when I called for a debate on the safety of pedestrians. I am conscious as I leave west Cork at 6 a.m. for Dublin during these short days of the numbers of pedestrians killed each year on the roads. When the figures are added they are quite significant. I am concerned in particular for the elderly and schoolchildren. It should be compulsory for old age pensioners to wear armbands. It would not cost an arm and a leg to distribute them to the elderly and schoolchildren so that they are reflected in the dark. I have had occasions where I have come around a corner on a bad foggy morning only to see a dark elderly figure emerge suddenly. One blesses oneself on having passed them without incident. One need not have drink taken to be involved in such accidents.

Someone mentioned earlier that the method of testing is far from appropriate and I agree. The tests being done today are the same as I did 30 years ago. As a young man I had to go to England and had to do a test there because my Irish licence was not acceptable. I also sat a driving test in the United States. The current test in Ireland, which is conducted primarily in an urban area without driving on the main roads, overtaking other vehicles or accelerating to 50 mph or 55 mph, should be changed because we do not all drive in urban environments.