Collision course

REARVIEW:WE HAVE BEEN discussing the problem of young people dying on the roads for well over a decade. In that time we have witnessed the introduction of a penalty-points system, a Garda traffic corps, a much-improved road network and a dedicated authority responsible for road safety. We will soon (or so we are promised) have significantly more stringent drink-driving laws. In the same period our awareness of the issue of road safety has been as high as ever.

Yet this summer we have seen two horrific crashes. The tragic relationship between Ireland’s young people and the car is as apparent as it ever was.

The Road Safety Authority’s plan to introduce compulsory lessons before learners can sit a driving test will be key to the beginning of proper driver education. Bringing it on to the school curriculum would be a welcome next step. The RSA’s plans for speed limiters and curfews for learner and inexperienced drivers caught breaking the rules are also welcome.

On the legal front, however, we must get back to basics. The threat of sanction (and even the prospect of death or injury) has failed to deter many young people from driving dangerously. Reams of laws and deterrents are already in place, yet in Donegal this summer almost every road seemed decorated with tyre marks from doughnuts performed in the middle of the night, sometimes close to cliff edges.

The only deterrent is the presence of gardaí in problem areas: on country roads and outside pubs on weekend nights, for example. Funding must be prioritised to expand the traffic corps in rural areas, to enforce the laws we already have before trying to introduce new ones.

More regulations may make us feel we are tackling the problem, but without rigorous enforcement it’s a futile and toothless effort.