[Article] Government holds summit over road deaths

Victor

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0923/roads.html

Government holds summit over road deaths
23 September 2004 07:57

The Government will hold a special summit later today to discuss the rise in road deaths.

The Minister for Transport, Séamus Brennan, the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, and the Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy, will attend the meeting at Government Buildings.

Representatives from the National Roads Authority and the National Safety Council will also be involved in the discussions.

Mr Brennan says the summit will focus particularly on the number of single car crashes during the early hours of the morning at the weekends.

Victor

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0923/roads.html

Extra resources promised to tackle road deaths
23 September 2004 19:54

The Government has promised more resources for the gardaí to carry out road traffic duties.

The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, also says there will be a new campaign to crack down on drink and dangerous driving over the coming months.

Mr McDowell said hundreds of gardaí would be transferred to traffic duty over a two-year period.

The minister was speaking after a meeting of interested lobbies when he also said that late night revellers who drink or drug drive would be targeted by undercover gardaí.

The emergency summit was held in Dublin today to discuss the rising death toll on Ireland's roads.

The Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan, called the meeting earlier this month after 11 people died in crashes in a single weekend.

The summit was attended by Mr McDowell, Mr Brennan and the Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy.

Representatives from the National Safety Council, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and the National Roads Authority were also present.

Mr Brennan was also expected to ask the Garda Síochana to concentrate speed traps on rural accident blackspots instead of built-up urban areas.

Summit a 'PR stunt', say insurers

Earlier, the Insurance Federation of Ireland described today's meeting as a PR stunt.

A spokesperson said insurers did not believe the discussions would achieve anything and that enforcement was the key to reducing road fatalities.

So far this year, 292 people have died on the roads. This is 50 more than in the same period last year.

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/4069722?view=Eircomnet

Extra resources promised to fight road carnage
From:ireland.com
Thursday, 23rd September, 2004

The Government and the Garda Commissioner pledged tonight to plough extra resources into road safety.

At an emergency summit called by the Minister for Transport Mr Seamus Brennan, agencies including the National Safety Council, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and the Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) made presentations calling for urgent action.

The number killed this year on Irish roads has already topped 290 but it was a weekend of carnage earlier this month, when road accidents claimed 11 lives, which prompted the Government to take action.

At the two-hour meeting, Minister for Justice Mr Michael McDowell promised to increase dramatically the numbers of gardaí on traffic duty and said a major road safety campaign would be launched.

Legislation on outsourcing of speed cameras will also brought forward. This will take the responsibility from gardai, giving them more time to concentrate on other areas.

Mr McDowell said computerisation of the penalty points system should be finalised by Christmas which will also free up garda resources.

Garda Commissioner Mr Noel Conroy agreed to look at the reallocation of resources and the introduction of speed traps in accident black spots.

The summit focused on the high number of single vehicle crashes resulting in death on country roads, especially those occurring in the early hours of the morning.

Mr Noel Doyle, of the IIF, said: "Commitments were given on enforcement and the outcome was very positive. I sincerely hope everything said was serious and that we will see some serious movement before Christmas."

The IFF proposed to denote one quarter of the two per cent Government levy imposed on all insurance policies to the campaign, which would total some €20 million a year.

Earlier this month senior gardaí backed Government plans for a fully-resourced traffic corps to stop the carnage on the roads.

Mr Brennan confirmed that under the upcoming Road Traffic Bill as many as 400 gardaí would be axed from fine collecting duties to join a new road safety unit.

Bee

I expect what will actually happen is our friends in blue will continue to hide behind bus shelters on the Stillorgan dual carraigeway holding their tools in their hands for an additional hour so that they can provide pumped up inflated figures on trapping those nasty speeding motorists travelling 2 mph above the limit (studiously ignoring muppet drivers and overloaded trucks and vans weaving along at 29mph) whilst having sweet damn all effect on either reducing road fatalites or policing pubs and clubs at closing time.

I really would love to be proved wrong in a year from now and see lowered fatalities at the various accidents blackspots etc.

Bee

Capt'n Midnight

Extra resources promised to fight road carnage
Legislation on outsourcing of speed cameras will also brought forward. This will take the responsibility from gardai, giving them more time to concentrate on other areas.

Mr McDowell said computerisation of the penalty points system should be finalised by Christmas which will also free up garda resources.

Yawn, whatever happened to the 2,000 Gardai promised before the election. Talk is cheap. Appearing to put revenue collection ahead of road safety is even cheaper.

Don't get me wrong something needs to be done but not temporary knee jerk reactions that fizzle out later. As an analogy if you want permenant weight loss, changing behaviour is the solution, crash diets are not the answer.

Yoda

Extra resources.

How about spending money driving the roads of Ireland and determining realistic safe for them? Then erect actual speed limit signs every 3 kilometres or so. Abandon the "national speed limit" and actually post safe speeds?

While they're at it, they could name and/or number the roads and initiate a general improval in signage.

ur mentor

Investment in more police,more cameras- see Feargal Quinn, more air bags, more seat belts, safer cars. what a waste of money
Can we not stop all this rubbish. Most accidents and deaths are caused by stupidity and human error. Drink driving and speeding are stupid.
Why not invest the money in developing and rolling out a totally controlled car traffic system- like the air traffic system.
Every driver must log on and state their route. then let the controllers control via gps and on board computers the speed and distance from other cars etc. drivers can only override autopilot in emergencies.
the country is small enough, we have awesome phone coverage, lets be brave.Come on all you techies and politicians, get serious to save lifes you really need to take a dramatic step, stop messing with minor changes to limits etc. be brave.