'Culture of speeding' contributes to collisions

New research has found that there is a sub-culture of young people in Border counties who engage in high-risk driving and who are contributing to the disproportionate number of road crashes in the region, a leading psychologist has said.

Prof Ray Fuller of the School of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin told a conference yesterday that this group did not use a car to get from A to B but rather as a means of self-expression.

He said these young drivers saw their car as a symbol of status within their peer group and as a way of displaying their mastery of driving, which was considered an adult competence.

"They have a code for flashing their lights at each other to engage in races. They enjoy the thrill of high speed and doing handbrake and doughnut turns," he said.

Prof Fuller said details of the activities of these young drivers had emerged in cross-Border research carried out recently.

In a presentation to the conference on road safety, which was organised by the National Roads Authority, Prof Fuller said international studies indicated that drivers exceeded the official speed limit when they believed they could do so without incurring increased risk when driving on a particular stretch of roadway.

He said that if drivers perceived that the speed limit was out of touch with the level of risk of driving on a particular stretch of road "then it was hardly surprising that compliance with speed limits was weak".

There was need to review speed limits in some cases to see if they were appropriate.

He suggested that new signs should be placed on roads indicating the reason for the particular speed limit in place.

"Sections of the N11 [ Wexford- Dublin road] are notorious for drivers complaining about the speed limits in place.

"The reason for this is that there are a large number of junctions," he said.

Prof Fuller proposed new signs to advise motorists about the reason for the speed limits. He said 14 per cent of drivers could be categorised as "high-risk".

Around 90 per cent of people in that group were male. Speed was a contributory factor in 12 per cent of all road crashes and in 30 per cent of fatal collisions.

Meanwhile, a leading consultant geriatrician called for the abolition of the requirement for older people to have to undergo medical screening to renew their driving licence once they reached 70.

Prof Des O'Neill of Tallaght hospital and Trinity College Dublin told the conference that the money saved from such a move should be used to develop alternative forms of transport for older people and to introduce new medical assessment centres.

He said this requirement stemmed from "an ageist attitude".

Prof O'Neill said older motorists were the safest group of drivers on the road.

The negative perceptions of older drivers had led to national policies, such as age-based driving screening, which were harmful to older people and which almost certainly promoted an unnecessary increase in unprotected exposure to traffic either as a pedestrian or a cyclist.