Penalty-point difficulties cost lives

More than 250 lives could have been saved if the impact of penalty points had not diminished six months after its introduction, an actuarial analysis has found.

A study from the Society of Actuaries in Ireland (SAI) into the impact of penalty points found a dramatic reduction in road deaths during the six months after November 2002, when the system was introduced.

During this six-month period just 141 people were killed on the roads, a drop of 34 per cent.

However, administrative difficulties with the system saw the "fear factor" fall among motorists after this "honeymoon" period and road deaths increase.

The author of the study, consulting actuary Declan Lavelle, said only half the initial improvement in road deaths has been sustained, and that 1,251 people have been killed on the roads from May 2003 to July 2006.

The report says if the rate of deaths had kept at the immediate post-penalty point level, 255 fewer fatalities would have occurred to date.

Brian Farrell, spokesman for the Road Safety Authority, said there was nothing new in the report. "It is well documented that the Road Safety Strategy wasn't as effective as it could be. Everyone knows why drivers' behaviour changed back to the old ways. Penalty points were introduced on a manual basis and when drivers saw there was no real likelihood of detection, they went back to their old habits.

"We didn't save as many lives as we could have if we had kept up the momentum, but what should not be forgotten is that there was a significant reduction in fatalities and people are alive today because of penalty points."

Mr Farrell says he does not expect a similar fall in enforcement activity of the recently expanded penalty points system and mandatory alcohol testing.

"Gardaí say they have conducted more breath tests since random testing came in than compared with all of last year. There is now a very realistic chance of getting caught and this creates a fear factor among drivers, and with the Garda Traffic Corps being expanded, we expect this level of enforcement to be maintained."

The study found that when Irish road fatalities were compared to those in the EU15 states, based on per 100,000 of population, Ireland was in line with the average but significantly behind the best performers. It notes that the per capita rates ignore the fact that despite a boom in car ownership, the number of cars per 1,000 people in the Republic was 418 in 2005, well below the 448 per 1,000 in the UK. On that basis even in 2003, when road deaths here were at record lows, they were 70 per cent higher than in the UK.