A dozen new sites for average speed cameras identified as dangerous driving now 'off the scale'

Close to 3,000 motorists were caught speeding at Easter as new figures prompted warnings that dangerous driving is now “off the scale”.

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) fears non-compliance with road laws like speeding, mobile phone use and drink-driving has contributed to this year’s death toll of 61 already. That is 13 more than the same time last year.

The RSA’s warning follows the exclusive publication of figures in the Irish Mirror four weeks ago to show that 30 per cent of road victims this year up to March 22 were in their teens or early 20s.

On Wednesday, RSA chairperson Liz O’Donnell appealed for harder penalties against law breakers and called for more average speed cameras to be rolled out as soon as possible. She claimed that dangerous driving has become more commonplace since the Covid-19 pandemic.

O’Donnell said: “For the last two years, since Covid, the level of non-compliance is just off the scale. People are not afraid of being caught so they are more willing to engage in dangerous behaviours.”

A RSA survey in January found that 10 per cent of drivers admitted driving after drinking alcohol in the last year.

O’Donnell added: “Over Easter alone, there were over 2,600 people detected for speeding. People are routinely speeding now.”

New Taoiseach Simon Harris has already vowed that road safety will be “a priority issue” for him.

Ireland’s road network has two average speed cameras for 200,000 kilometres of road. A dozen new sites have been identified, but critics claim speed cameras are expensive.

However, RSA chair Liz O’Donnell said: “This is nothing compared to the scale of deaths on Irish roads.”

The RSA has been criticised by some campaigners who want a shake-up of the country’s road safety watchdog – but O’Donnell defended the Authority.

Liz O’Donnell, chairperson of the Road Safety Authority

She said: “We can only do so much. It’s the Road Safety Authority who has been raising the issue since the direction of traffic has gone terribly wrong in terms of road deaths. So we’re there.

“We’re doing our best. I think they have a point when they say not fit for purpose, our budget isn’t fit for purpose. Certainly, and that’s what we’ve been raising with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice and calling on them to actually put the resources into enforcement. Enforcement is the missing link.”

She added: “We’re pointing out where we need help and it’s in all of Government strategy.

“It’s not just one agency which can deliver this. We don’t have the resources to deliver all of the things that need to be done.

“We certainly don’t have the resources to force the Garda Commissioner to actually apply more dedicated gardaí to road policing. That’s only 635 people allocated to roads policing and that’s only 4.5 per cent of the total overall policing numbers.

“That’s a huge deficit. It’s the missing link. It’s what we need to fix. Enforcement. Enforcement. Enforcement.”

Last year’s road death toll of 188 was the worst in nearly a decade and was 30 more than 2022’s 158 figure. That 30 figure is the same tally which shows 30 of the victims from last year were aged 16 to 25.

Despite the 16 to 25 age group making up just 12 per cent of the population, people in that age bracket represent 20 per cent of all road deaths since 2019.

The percentage is even higher this year, with 33 per cent of this year’s 61 road victims to date being under the age of 25. Males represent the highest cohort of victims, with nearly 80 per cent of road victims aged between 16 and 25 in 2023 being male.

Some 87 per cent of all drivers who died on the roads from 2015 to 2019 whilst speeding were male, according to RSA figures.

Trinity College Dublin assistant psychology professor Dr Michael Gormley is an expert of male driver behaviour.

He said: “They don’t think they’re invulnerable. They know about the risks. What they do have is an optimistic bias.”

He added: “They think, ‘I’m not going to get involved in the collision’. “They participate in speeding more. They wear their seat belts less and they drive while intoxicated.”

A Garda checkpoint (file photo)

Optimistic bias is the belief that a negative event like a car crash will not happen to them.

Recent EU figures also highlight the soaring rates of road fatalities. The European Commission last month published a country-by-country analysis of road deaths per million inhabitants in 2023 and compared the stats with the average of three pre-pandemic years.

Ireland’s increase of 29 per cent was the worst percentage increase of any country in the bloc. Drink and drug-driving remains a problem, according to the stats, with cannabis and cocaine appearing most in toxicology tests.

Data for 2015 to 2019 shows 37 per cent of all driver fatalities in that period recorded a positive alcohol test.

University College Dublin (UCD) professor Denis Cusack of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety (MBRS) told RTE’s Prime Time: “Drink-driving remains a very serious concern as a contributory factor to road traffic crashes.”

He added: “Out of the 188 road deaths last year, statistically, about 56 of them had alcohol as a contributory factor. Probably about half that number may have had drugs as a contributory factor.”

Professor Cusack warned: “Regardless of whether it’s alcohol or one of the other types of drugs, it [driving while intoxicated] has a very serious and dangerous effect on contributing to crashes.”

Almost 75 per cent of all road deaths occurred on rural roads with speed limits of 80km/h or higher in 2023. The N25 between Cork and Wexford is one of the most dangerous roads in Ireland.

Some 22 fatal collisions occurred on the N25 between 2017 and 2022, according to figures provided by gardaí to the Irish Mirror.

A new Road Traffic Bill, which is currently going through the Oireachtas, is proposing to reduce speed limits and introduce mandatory checks for drugs at the scene of collisions.

National secondary roads will be reduced from 100km/h to 80km/h, while rural and local roads will fall from 80km/h to 60km/h, and urban speed limits will be 30km/h instead of the existing 50km/h.

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