The high rate of road collisions among young male drivers will be the target of a new television advertising campaign, details of which were announced yesterday.
The National Safety Council said the 30-second advertisement would depict a high-speed collision in which three people die but the driver survives, paralysed. It will be screened for four weeks, starting tonight, and again periodically over the next three years.
The NSC chairman, Mr Eddie Shaw, said that up to 30 per cent of drivers killed each year were young men, "a trend that cannot be allowed to continue". Provisional figures showed 54 young people had already died this year, more than half of them in single-vehicle events where speeding was the main factor.
Car crashes were the number one killer of Irish males aged 16 to 25, he added.
He also cited British research which indicated that an 18-year-old male is three times more likely to be involved in a crash than a 48-year-old, while a 17-year-old was seven times more likely to be involved than a middle-aged person.
"Bravado, peer pressure and a sense of invincibility often leads young men to take risks while driving, without realising the danger of these risks. Young men in particular have to realise that their style of driving has consequences: you reap what you sow."
The Minister of State for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Bobby Molloy, said the campaign was intended to address a situation in which over half of all road accidents involved young men: "This campaign clearly demonstrates that speed kills and I hope it will have a positive influence on all our young drivers."
The Government aims for a 20 per cent reduction in road deaths by 2002, with a 50 per cent reduction in excess speeding over the same period.
If the target is met, up to 50 lives could be saved in 2002, according to the NSC.