A recent promise by the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, to put up to 60 extra speed cameras at accident "black spots", has been welcomed by many groups interested in road safety, but much work will need to be done to establish just where the black spots are. Brian Byrne reports.
The information on "high acccident location" (HAL) roads published by the National Roads Authority last year, is based on accident information from 1996-2000, and as yet there's no sign of more recent official data becoming available.
In addition, the NRA document deals only with National Routes, so information on secondary roads, many of them with high local traffic, also must be gathered.
Consultation with individual garda divisions will be undertaken, according to a spokesman for the Department of Transport, who claims this week that there is no other "list" of black spot road sections except the NRA document. "The Garda are in the front line, so we will depend on their local knowledge," he says. "We will also consult with the roads departments in each local authority as to the best placement for the cameras."
Promising the extra cameras during the launch last week of a TV advertising campaign on penalty points, the Minister said that the new cameras would not be confined to motorways and main roads, as is currently the case with many "speed traps", but they will also be deployed on secondary roads with a history of accidents.
The data so far published is based on accident statistics on 87 National Routes. It was collected so that local authorities would have information on which to base their own programmes to eliminate black spots. It relates only to road sections outside urban 40-mph limits, but these are where four out of five fatalities on inter-urban routes happen.
Out of 939 sections of road audited in the NRA's HAL document, 109 were shown to have a "greater than expected" number of accidents, based on a statistical prediction model.
They include sections of the N11 south of Wicklow, the N81 between Poulaphuca and Baltinglass, the N7 near Saggart and Blackchurch, the N53 from Dundalk to Castleblayney - which is accorded the highest accident rate in the country - the N51 between Edgeworthstown and Cavan, the N59 from Ballina to Dromore, and the N69 from Listowel to Tralee.
The NRA cautions that its interpretation of what may or may not be HALs is subject to data "deficiencies" that could have caused incorrect identification.
Over the years examined, there were 830 fatal accidents on the Republic's nearly 5,500 kilometres of national roads. A further 2,286 people received serious injury.
Almost 42 per cent of the accidents happened in wet conditions, with a third involving skidding. Some 35 per cent happened at night, and almost a quarter were single vehicle accidents. Road defects were cited in just 4.2 per cent of the incidents.
Meanwhile, the company which has changed Dublin's on-street parking situation in the last five years says it would be "very interested" in taking on the management of camera-based speed limits enforcement if the opportunity arises.
Neill Cunningham of Central Parking System Ltd, which operates as "Control Plus" - colloquially known as "The Clampers" - on the streets of Dublin, says such a contract would "fit very well" into the company's portfolio of work.
"We have a similar camera-based enforcement contract with a British local authority in managing bus lanes," he says. "In that case, we operate the cameras, process the information in conjunction with the DVLA, send out the notices and collect the fines. The problem never reaches the local police."
Minister Brennan last week held up the track record of the Dublin clampers as a example of the success of privatisation of duties formerly managed by the gardaí.