New 'Rules of the Road' out today

The new Rules Of the Road to be published today contains a reference to road rage for the first time.

The new publication will also reflect the introduction of metric speed limits, penalty points and on-the-spot fines and also more detailed information on motorway driving. Metric stopping distances and information on quality bus corridors are also included.

It also stipulates new requirements that motorists face for their driving test, such as the technical checks carried out before the candidate takes to the road.

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has also devoted considerable time and effort to improving the clarity of language used within the new document.

The RSA has plans to ensure the document is far more widely disseminated - as well as being published in Irish, it will be available in three other languages.

Mindful of the confusion felt by many motorists using roundabouts - to the extent that 26 drivers have been given penalty points for turning right on to a roundabout - the explanatory section on this aspect of driving has been increased.

As an example of the more fraught driving experience in 2007 compared with 1995, the updated Rules of the Road now carries advice on road rage.

If confronted by an apoplectic fellow motorist, the rulebook suggests that the driver "try not to react" and adds that drivers confronted by road rage should resist the temptation to "accelerate, brake or swerve".

It also removes what Conor Faughnan of AA Ireland described as "legacy issues".

One of these was the suggestion that if a tractor is pulling a trailer which obscures the view from behind, a person must be carried on the trailer who could advise the driver of traffic behind them.

This is obviously not road safety practice and the suggestion has been removed. The new rules replace a document that had become obsolete and inaccurate in the 12 years since the then environment minister, Brendan Howlin, published it.

Despite the Road Safety Strategy 2004 to 2006 prioritising the updating of the Rules of the Road by 2005, a draft of the new proposals was only published last summer.

Members of the public and other interested bodies including the National Roads Authority, AA and the Irish Road Hauliers Association were then given four weeks to make submissions.

Mr Faughnan said the new Rules of the Road was "a very good document, but not perfect".

"I think the major differences are the more detailed references to motorways, because now we genuinely have a motorway network and references to driving with mobile phones."

Unlike its predecessor, Mr Faughnan said he hoped the new document would be more regularly updated to reflect significant road changes, such as the privatatised speed camera system due to be rolled out later this year.