Rural roads worst for crash fatalities

Mobile speed camera units are ineffective and a network of fixed cameras is required to improve safety on rural roads, a European conference on road safety was told last night.

Prof Reinhold Maier, chair of the road engineering department at Dresden University, said because more than two-thirds of crashes happen on rural roads, this is where enforcement activity must be concentrated.

He told road safety experts at a European Transport Safety Council conference in Dresden the causes of crashes on rural road "are ignored to a great extent".

It is not sufficient for enforcement agencies to merely set speed limits on these roads, he said, the limits must be enforced using speed cameras, he added.

In a lecture, Reducing Casualties on Country Roads in the EU, he said mobile speed checks have "only a limited effect. Only fixed speed monitoring devices can achieve an effective speed decrease". He said an effective speed monitoring system would have a camera at every 4km of dangerous rural roads.

In Ireland, 70 per cent of fatal collisions happened on rural roads in 2004, the last year for which data is available.

Prof Maier said road engineers have ignored the dangers of trees on the very edge or roads, gate-posts and telegraph poles.

According to the National Road Authority's Road Collision Facts report for 2004, 100 drivers died following a collision with either a tree, pole, wall/gate or ditch. In that year 374 people were killed on the roads.

Prof Maier said the severity of crashes was far higher "when an impact against roadside obstacles occurs".

The number of fatalities per 1,000 crashes doubles to 90 when vehicles collide with such obstacles, he added. "Therefore, forgiving roadsides can play a major role in reducing such collisions and the responsible authorities should where possible move unnecessary obstacles away from the roadside, or, as a last resort surround them with an energy absorbing barrier."

He said an 80km speed limit should be applied to tree-lined rural roads, or those with obstacles close to the road side.

A third of crashes on rural roads happen at junctions, and Prof Maier has identified two major causes: "The first is the poor visibility of minor approaches to an intersection . . . the second problem is the inadequate speed on the major road."

In 2004, 23 people were killed at on Irish roads at junctions in urban areas, whereas 35 were killed in crashes at junctions on rural roads.

Junctions where there are repeated crashes must be identified through crash investigation and remedial engineering measures taken, Pro Maier said. In Ireland the NRA has a list of crash blackspots requiring remedial measures and is working through this list.

Although the number of pedestrians killed on rural roads is only 2.5 per cent in Ireland, the severity of these collisions means that almost one in every five person struck by a vehicle is killed.

Conor Faughnan, spokesman for AA Ireland, said it was vital that correct speed limits were set on non-national roads to ensure compliance from motorists.

He warned against "gardaí ambushing drivers in silly locations" saying that such speed enforcement activity makes drivers "cynical about the road safety exercise".

But he said the situation has improved considerably over the past couple of years. "They're starting to analyse their work on a much more rational basis," he explained. Mr Faughnan said some county councils failed to address controversial speed limits in their area, despite being asked to by the Minister for Transport. "If you set speed limits correctly and then police them sensibly, then you will have enormous good will on the part of the travelling public," he noted.