Preventing young road deaths comes at a price

Unsurprisingly, it was the actuary in the family - every family should have one - who put the road safety issue in clearest terms in relation to his two young nephews, my sons. "Whatever they do, don't let them near a motorbike or behind the wheel of a car before they are 25. Tell them, if they want to live long, the single most important thing they can do is not to drive before they are 25 and not go near a motorbike. In fact, I'll pay them not to drive before they are 25. Tell them that."

This is the week and the month when we are reminded again of road deaths by the National Safety Council. An attention-grabbing headline of 1,000 of the 62,000 current leaving certificate students being scheduled, virtually, for death on the roads over the next eight years brought home the numbers in yet another stark illustration.

The strict statistics and the chances could be quibbled with, but the direction was correct. One hundred and thirty-four young people being killed in accidents on the roads is an appalling figure, and must be an even more appalling reality for many people.

The Irish Insurance Federation, whose actuary members would be used to calculating and pricing risk, also are losing patience with the recklessness of drivers and the neglect of public policy on enforcement and standards in relation to road deaths.

The insurers' job of pricing risk is made more difficult when people seem to assess risk so much lower than it should be. A reckless public leaves insurers playing catch-up with the price of their policies, with the non-reckless customers bearing an unfair cost.

In relation to young drivers, specifically, we all know how expensive car insurance is. Some people even complain about this, when it seems very cheap, given the chances of younger drivers wrecking cars, themselves and others.

Yet that premium is only to cover the costs of damage to cars and any civil liability for loss of health or life of other drivers. It does not pay to eliminate the risk of damage or loss of life and limb to the insured, still less to reduce that risk.

So we return to the issue raised by the family actuary - how much would you, personally, not the State, pay to eliminate or vastly reduce the risk of your child killing himself (and others) on the road? What bargain could be made in exchange for the expected freedom to drive before the age of 25?

Would you shell out, reluctantly, say, £1,500, or the cost of comprehensive insurance for a driver under 25? Surely you would pay more than that, since the risk-reduction benefits of the "contract" would be much greater than a conventional insurance policy. If £1,500 is the value of the deal, it's hard to think we have any clue as to the extent of the risk being run - one-in-62 over an eight-year period, according to the headline figure produced for effect this year.

You'll get distracted from the point if you think about the question in terms of the pricelessness of every life. It's not about the price of a life, but the cost of risk-reduction and the appreciation, or otherwise, we have of the real risks we and our children face.

What would an 18-year-old think was a fair bargain in return for not driving? I'd guess thousands of pounds, enough to underwrite many taxi journeys, hiring of coaches for parties, compensation for loss of freedom of movement and having to rely on dire regional public transport for weekends away, and so on. I imagine that is what an 18-year-old might think, if forced to specify his compensation for not driving; not, in fact, about the great deal of money being paid to reduce his own chance of dying before 25.

A further theoretical, but illuminating, question - what would you pay to be guaranteed that your child would not take ecstasy, or other drugs?

Would you pay anything to guarantee that your child did not start smoking? You'll have read about the tragedies of one night's fatal use of ecstasy, and have long since inured yourself against the desperate tales of lives wasted to heroin. Would you pay more or less for the avoidance of drugs than for the avoidance of the steering wheel? Do you and I understand where the real risks lie?

Actions speak louder than words. Paying money is just one way of illustrating what we are prepared to do, rather than say, to tackle tough issues. It's all very well and indeed justified to complain about the Government, the civil servants, the Garda, car marketeers, and the county councils in relation to road deaths. But if we always talk about it in cost-free terms for each of us individually, that is cheap and evasive, and we'll simply deserve the horrors we get.

Oliver O'Connor is editor of the monthly publication, Finance. E-mail ooconnor@indigo.ie