OP confused about crash statistics

Niall1234 wrote:

we keep hearing that Speeding is the number on cause for collisions on our roads.

Are you perhaps confusing it with the "number one cause of FATAL collisions"?

If the Gardaí are conducting speed checks on busy 'safe' roads then that's a positive thing. It creates an awareness among motorists and is referred to as "High Visibility Policing". There are regularly threads on this forum about the absence of Gardaí on our major roads especially about their absence on the country's busiest road. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

If the Gardaí were to set up a speed check on a rural road they might catch a few speeders but it would be counter-productive and the general message would be lost . It would be like advertising in a newspaper that no one reads.

A person who speeds on a rural road is also more likely to speed on a national road and vice-versa.

Others regularly complain that speeding fines are a form of stealth tax. If that is so, it's the only tax I know where one can choose whether to contribute or not. Most of the people convicted for speeding offences are travelling at more that 50% higher that the posted limit even though offenders will try to convince others that they were 'just above' the limit.

Anyway, this type of thread has been done to death.

Note that this 13% is for two vehicle collisions only, where it's dwarfed by "Wrong side of road". So government publicity has been focused on drink driving.

I think that the link has changed to
http://www.nra.ie/Publications/DownloadableDocumentation/RoadSafety/file,3629,en.pdf

Road collision facts in 2004.

Figure 9: Two Vehicle Fatal Collisions in 2004 Classified by
Contributory Action
Went to wrong side of road 40%
Other action 26%
Exceeded safe speed limit 13%
Drove through stop/yield 12%
Improper overtaking 9%
Drove through traffic signal 1%

But this neglects all the other road fatalities. The paragraph on page 5 explains why there is focus on speeding.

Thirty-six per cent of all fatal collisions in 2004 were single vehicle only collisions.
This represents an increase of three percentage points over the 2003 situation.
This collision type, which involves no other road user, is strongly associated with
two causal factors, namely excessive speed and / or alcohol consumption.

Besides slowing down lessens the damage, and doesn't involve waiting on upgrading all the bothareens to do something.

Niall1234 wrote:

THink about it this way though.

As you claim, Gardai do speed checks on main roads to show that they do speed checks.

But if everyone knows that Gardai don't do speed checks on byroads, then whats to stop them from speeding on them ?

I've seen speedchecks on N and R grade roads.
So for the rest we depend on personal and community responsibility (which shockingly enough works for some), fear of being stuck behind a tractor, anti-speed publicity and anti-vehicle potholes.

Niall1234 wrote:

According to the RSA, the Gardai and most media outlets, we keep hearing that Speeding is the number on cause for collisions on our roads.

Presumably because the other categories of accidents have worse results at higher speeds? It's basic physics.

OK - "cause for collisions" isn't logical. But speed is surely the most critical factor in most accidents?

I think they should publish statistics on which cars are death-traps and which are not.