Here we go again with the annual pre-Christmas surveillance of the roads in an effort to reduce drunken and dangerous driving. The campaign may well have some effect in reducing the toll of death and disaster that might have occurred without it, and for any such beneficial outcome, gratitude and relief will be in order. But, as the road accident statistics have shown in most other years, the effects of these short-term campaigns have been short-lived. For years past, the annual death toll on the roads has remained resolutely above 400 and this year it has already surpassed that figure.
It is not the highest road-death toll in Europe (Portugal appears to top that dreadful league) but it is a great deal higher than it should be, and the means of reducing it, even to the level in the United Kingdom, are fairly clearly recognised. But a great deal more commitment and far more resources will be required if any significant progress is to be made towards the minimisation of death and injury on Irish roads. Mr Bobby Molloy, Minister of State in the Department of the Environment, said yesterday at the inauguration of this year's pre-Christmas campaign, that the Government is determined to address the problem - if necessary with more resources. Yet the additional grant of £50,000 to the National Safety Council (NSC) is not even enough to allow that seriously under-resourced body to run a pre-Christmas television campaign.
The NSC, which is responsible for safety in several areas other than just the roads, has a total staff of 11 and an annual budget of about £1.5 million. Given the amount of insistent and effective education that is required to alter drivers' behaviour, that is a pitiable amount of both human and financial resources. And the two Government departments that are primarily responsible for safety and behaviour on the roads - Justice and Environment - are either not allocating resources adequately or have insufficient resources to make any impact on the problem.
It has been clearly shown in other countries that infractions of speed limits can be greatly reduced by the presence of cameras which detect speeding cars and that this, in turn, reduces the death and injury rate.
Yet speed now appears to be a dominant factor in fatal road accidents here, and there are precious few cameras around to slow things down. Insistence on the use of seat-belts and child restraints in cars also reduces the toll, yet many adults are seen not to use belts and a terrifying 80 per cent of children are carried in cars here with no use of appropriate restraints. The road network is seriously deficient in many areas of the country, and it is reported that there has been a 35 per cent increase in the commercial fleet using Irish roads in the past seven years (with a concomitant increase in the number of crashes involving cars and lorries). But there is little evidence of any authority addressing seriously either of these two phenomena. Small wonder that the Chief Executive of the Irish Insurance Federation called yesterday for more resources to be put into the prevention of traffic accidents. There is scant evidence of any co-ordinated or concentrated effort being put into the problem at all, either by road users or by national or local authorities. Without such effort, the pre-Christmas campaign seems somewhat of an empty ritual.