AS children return to school next week, the greatest threat to their safety outside the home is not the roaming paedophile or the deranged gunman: it is the driver, especially the young male driver, at the wheel of a car.
Children under 17 make up a third of all pedestrian and cyclist victims of fatal road accidents, who here number about 400 annually. Pedestrians and cyclists are also tar more likely than car users to be killed if they are involved in road accidents.
Globally, half a million people die in road accidents every year. This century cars have killed 25 million people, more than Europe's plagues, and more than genocide, famine or nuclear explosion.
Traffic accidents are the single greatest cause of death for those between 18 and 24, and have caused more deaths in Northern Ireland than the Troubles. Yet they are treated lightly by the public and politicians and are seen as somehow inevitable, if unfortunate, as if the deceased was a victim of a natural disaster. A measure of this is the fact that a death in a traffic accident merits a paragraph in a daily newspaper, while a death by shooting gets far more attention.
But a traffic accident is not a natural disaster. It involves a person getting into a car, which is a potentially dangerous weapon, and, at least some of the time, acting in a way which causes death or injury. In half of all cases where a contributory cause of an accident was given in the 1994 statistics, the behaviour of the driver was cited; most commonly going through road sign, going too fast, improperly overtaking or driving on the wrong side of the road.
KILLING someone with a car is also treated far more lightly by the courts than causing death in any other way. If a driver is responsible for killing someone in an accident he (the majority of those involved are male) is charged with dangerous driving. According to the Road Traffic Acts, this carries a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment or a fine of £10,000.
However, the penalties paid are far less. For example, in May last year a man was fined £250 and banned from driving for two years after he pleaded guilty to careless driving, resulting in an accident in which a woman died. The imposition of a 3 1/2 year sentence and a 20 year ban on a young man who hit two children, killing one of them and leaving the other brain damaged, made headlines last month because of its severity. He had been driving on the wrong side of the road at 70 m.p.h. in a residential area, and had no licence, tax or insurance.
In court the young man was described as having a fascination with cars. This is very common among men. Academic careers have been built on examining the association between cars, speed, power and masculinity, and advertisements for fast cars are invariably aimed at men.
Cars are intimately bound up with status, with the size and power of the car indicating the importance of its owner. Once in possession of such a car, there is an imperative to drive it appropriately. So it is hardly surprising that men, and in particular young men, outnumber women by three to one in the car accident statistics.
Any moderately observant driver can see why. It is especially obvious if that driver is female. The young man revving in order to get away first at the traffic lights is a common phenomenon. And I know I am not the only female driver who has overtaken a male driver, who then risks his own life and those of others in order to undo the humiliation as quickly as possible.
WE have not yet experienced "road rage" in this country, but it can only be a matter of time before we follow the UK. The phenomenon of male drivers (and the cases have all been men) behaving with such aggression that they drive others off the road or, in some cases, follow, assault and murder other drivers, is only an extreme example of quite common male behaviour on the roads.
There is a logical progression from identifying a car with one's own strength and power to speeding to aggressive overtaking and from there to assaulting those perceived to be in the way. I must admit here that, I, too, drive fast sometimes. Of course, I like to think I don't ever put the occupants of my car or anyone else at risk when doing so, and I have never felt driven to assault another driver. But I don't think I - or others - should get away with it so easily.
People do not, in general, get into cars with the intention of hitting others. But then, most civilians who own and use guns do not intend to hurt anyone either, and in general they don't. Yet ownership and use of guns is strictly controlled.
However, anyone can buy a car, as was shown recently when a group of young teenagers clubbed together to buy a "banger". They would need a licence to drive it legally. However, if you are over 17, you can get a six month provisional licence for £12. You are meant to be accompanied by a qualified driver while driving on your first provisional licence, but after that you don't have to be. You must apply for a driving test to get a third provisional licence, but you can drive unaccompanied indefinitely provided you keep doing - and failing - the test every two years.
Those who question the extent of our use of the car are seen as cranks. Cars are a necessary means of transport for many people. But it is time to reconsider how we control their use.
Dr Ray Fuller, a psychology lecturer in Trinity College, has been working on transportation safety for 19 years. In a recent article in Technology Ireland he points out that drivers with less than five years' experience have an accident rate five times as high as more experienced drivers.
There are three ways of reducing car accidents, he writes. Firstly, cars can be, and are being, built more with safety in mind. Secondly, roads can be engineered to produce "traffic calming". But at the end of the day it comes down to driver behaviour.
Here he proposes more, and continuous, training for drivers, instead of unleashing them on the world alter a single test.
Indeed, why not start in schools? The widespread fascination of young males in particular with cars could be channelled into learning how they work, how to control them and how to avoid accidents. Experiments with young joyriders - which involved them in stock car racing have been very successful in reducing their anti social behaviour.
Finally, there is the question of sanctions for breaking traffic laws, which at the moment are too lenient and are not vigorously applied. According to Dr Fuller, the EU has been funding research to develop new technology to monitor driver behaviour.
This would involve road surveillance and an in car monitor. The monitor would warn the driver of his or her transgression and if the person failed to desist immediately, the appropriate fine would be debited from the offender's bank account.