Shaw urges new approach to road safety

The former chairman of the National Road Safety Council has called on the Government to give responsibility for road safety to three ministers.

Eddie Shaw resigned from his post at the weekend, saying that he had to take responsibility for failing to convince the Government to invest in its own policies on road safety.

The new Road Safety Authority will take over from the council in January.

"The authority will need multi-year funding attached to the same time period as the policy," Mr Shaw told The Irish Times yesterday.

"The Cabinet also needs to agree that at least three ministers should stand over the authority. If it remains an issue for the Department of Transport alone, it will fail. The departments of Justice and Health should share the responsibility. Most of the benefits of a good road safety policy flow directly to Health."

In an RTÉ Radio interview, Minister for Transport Martin Cullen expressed surprise at Mr Shaw's decision, but said he accepted the points he had made and that the road safety policy would have to be implemented.

Mr Shaw said he felt the council had failed to convince the Government at Cabinet level that there were serious problems relating to the implementation of its road safety policy.

Those problems, relating to the budgetary framework and the decision-making structure, could only be dealt with around the Cabinet table.

He said that if the Republic was on a par with the rest of Europe, 20 people would be killed and 160 injured on the roads every month.

At it was, this year the number was heading toward 400 deaths, when it should be 240, which meant that between 140 and 160 people were dying unnecessarily on the roads. Eight times that number were being seriously injured.

He said that following the introduction of the penalty points system there had been a little change for the better in driver behaviour for four months

However, this was not sustained because the Government did not provide the infrastructure to allow gardaí to enforce the system.

"It is a case doing part of the policy, like the legislation, but not investing in the administrative infrastructure. Normal businessmen would call that a complete nonsense," he added.

Meanwhile, in an interview on The Political Party on TV3, Mr Shaw called on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to take personal responsibility for the matter. "He has shown that when he steps in and takes responsibility for policies that are not working, they work," he said.