Let's not get cocky about safety

REARVIEW:LATEST FIGURES show deaths on Irish roads are at an all-time low. There were 11 fatalities last month and 40 in the first quarter of the year, the fewest since records began 50 years ago.

Were that trend to continue, the 2010 tally will be 160, well under last year’s total of 240 and a third of the number killed on our roads during the worst years of the 1990s.

These statistics will be of no comfort to the families of victims. Every death is somebody’s son, mother, father or daughter and every one is one too many.

The fall is nevertheless encouraging. It is down to several factors, sustained Garda enforcement prime among them. Credit is also due to the Road Safety Authority (RSA) for its committed education programme. Improved roads have also contributed, as has a tougher NCT regime which is getting the most dangerous death-traps off the roads.

But the most important factor of all is the motoring public, who appear to have belatedly copped on and accepted that their previous feckless habits are no longer acceptable. It has taken thousands of destroyed lives for the message to get through, but drink-driving and tearing around like your hair is on fire are finally taboo.

So, is it time to take a communal bow? No. For we’ve been here before. Deaths and serious injuries plummeted in the two years after the introduction of penalty points in 2001, only to rise again as motorists realised there wasn’t actually a garda with a speed gun behind every tree.

We must, as a nation, guard against the return of such complacency. The authorities can play their part, but it is only by assuming personal responsibility for what happens on our roads that we motorists can ensure the downward trend continues and more families can be spared the hurt of another needless death.