Road Traffic Deaths Statistics Show Possible Rise

Victor

I did an analysis of the Garda road traffic deaths statistics from and with (not necessarily following) the introduction of the Penalty Points scheme, deaths did fall from a high of 42 per month last July (never a low point anyway) to 20 per month in January (January is usually a mid point, not a low point), however this went up to 22 in February and I expect 28 in March (18 so far this month).

This is still below last year's figures, but the figures are starting to deteriorate and while they could be attributed to one particularly bad weekend when 9 people died, hopefully it is a blip and not a return to "normal".

So far the year seems to have been kind to pedal cyclists (no deaths to date) and unkind to motorcyclists (up perhaps 65%, but the sample is small).

The pattern of the total number of deaths per month roughly follows the pattern of the percentage change on the same month in the previous year.

Source: http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statistics98/nroadstats.html

Victor

Out-turn for March was 30 deaths, 2 more than I expected. This is higher than the 5-year average for March (but lower than last March). People are getting lax again, any discipline brought about by the introduction of the Penalty Points Scheme, has largely been eroded. Perhaps it is time to expand the scheme.

Penalty points save 62 as drivers make right turn
From:The Irish Independent
Tuesday, 1st April, 2003
Treacy Hogan and Gene McKenna

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/457169?view=Eircomnet

MORE than 60 people and €80m in medical and other bills have been saved so far by the introduction of the penalty points system, official figures revealed yesterday.

There have been 62 fewer road deaths since the system began five months ago and this was directly linked yesterday to a change in driver behaviour on Irish roads.

According to official National Safety Council (NSC) figures, there was 118 road deaths between November last when the points system began and the end of March, 62 fewer than the 180 who lost their lives during the corresponding period the previous year.

The NSC said the cost of a fatal accident has been put at €1.3m which implied that 62 less fatalities could mean saving of €80.6m.

The council said that since the introduction of the penalty points system drivers have made a conscious decision to change their behaviour for the better.

"We have reduced our speed. The result, deaths and injuries have dropped dramatically," NSC spokesperson Brian Farrell said.

"In fact by accepting greater personal responsibility for our behaviour on the roads we have managed to save 62 lives in the last five months compared to the same period 12 months ago.

"This is equivalent to four Gaelic football or rugby teams."

But Mr Farrell warned that despite this success there was still an unacceptable number of people being killed and injured.

"Last year 377 people died on the roads. These are not just numbers. They are grandparents, mothers, fathers, young adults, students and children. A small change in our behaviour will save lives, it is already happening.

"So I would urge drivers to keep up the good work - drive at an appropriate speed, wear a seat belt and never ever drink and drive.

"The life we save could be a member of our family, a close friend-or even our own."

Deputy Government Chief Whip Billy Kelleher said the figures showed that "after years of carnage, we are finally making dramatic progress to halt the slaughter on our roads".

He said gardai should mount a "safety crackdown" during the Easter period covering the key areas of speed, the wearing of seat belts and drink driving.

During the Christmas period, Mr Kelleher said, gardai had made over 30 arrests a day for drink driving.

... <snip>

The attached graph compares total death in a particular month to the same month in the previous year. I have not studied the effect of the Easter Bank holiday weekend moving between months (this may expalin the big dip last April).

mike65

Victor one might belive you were becoming a little distracted by this issue!

It can't be a surprise that numbers have started to drift back up, the shock and awe of points on ones licence was allways going to pass, this means its time to get cracking on enforcment. I dont know about anyone else but while I've seen more Gardai on the roads in the last 2 weeks (sunny weather seems to bring em out) there has plainly not been any significant/sustained increase in enforcement. I'm wondering if points are being processed quickly? After all if ppl are out there having been caught speeding but nothing arrives in the post then the law is being undermined. Drivers only respond to threats as a rule...

I wonder if the fall in fatalities and crashes has had any effect on premiums yet...?

Mike.

TomF

I've taken two trips to Dublin and one to Galway in the past month, and didn't see any Gardai at all. My opinion is like Mike's, that the word is out that there is no worry about the points system and speeds are back up to their usual maniacal level and suicidal and murderous overtaking behaviour on the roads are right back where they have always been. Very depressing. Maybe it's time to call in the U.S. Marines (or maybe the California Highway Patrol)! Wouldn't it be sweet to be overtaken by the usual eedjit on a road and ahead see him pulled over to the side of the road and having "a meaningful dialogue" with an irate Marine?

seamus

I'd definitely say people are getting lax. It's the same old deal with driving offences in this country - there aren't enough Gardai to deal with it, and it's not enforced properly.

I (almost ) broke a red light a while back, right in front of a Garda. He pulled me over, and gave me an incorrect definition of what to do when the light turns orange. The 2 things which bothered me were 1) he didn't know his rules of the road (he was a speedie ffs) and 2) He warned me and drove off.

Warnings are all too common. If you break the law, you should be punished, plain and simple. It's far too easy to get away with things, either because you know where the Gardai are going to be, or because they warn people. At the time, I was glad he didn't fine me (€80 would have completely demolished the bank ), but afterwards I thought he should have fined me, and I'll just lump it. I made a mistake - a conscious one too - and I should have been punished.

I'd say motorbike deaths are up, due to the particularly harsh winter we just had. Bikers tend to not go out in snow, but rain changes the entire nature of motorcycling, and from what I remember, us bikers had to put up with way more rainy days than any other last winter. You'll probably find that biker figures for March/April this year will be way down, due to the unbelievable dryness we've had.



(FS, I've been doing a lot of ranting today)

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

TomF

Hmm. For a while there I was thinking maybe importing U.S. traffic cops wouldn't be such a good idea, then I looked at the basis of the statistics and see it is by 100,000 population. I think a better basis is per unit of distance travelled by motor vehicle on the nation's roads. When this is done, the picture is a little different, and seems to reflect my experiences on the roads of the world, and reinforces my wish for U.S. Marine checkpoints along our roads! Or maybe the Northern Ireland PP will result in enough policing consultation that our rate will come down to that of Northern Ireland.

Using Enrico Fermi's atomic thumb system of approximation, I guess that there are about 3.5 million people in the Republic, and estimate that 1.2 million are drivers, and are on the road 35 miles a day for 365 days a year for a total of about 15 billion kms per year. If there are about 410 road deaths a year in Ireland, the ratio for Ireland becomes about 27, which is well up into the league with Greece and the Czech Republic (Are the Czechs all driving Skodas?).

http://www.transtat.dft.gov.uk/tables/tsgb01/8/80701.htm
Rate of road car user deaths in 1999 per 100 billion car kms
Great Britain 7.3
United Kingdom 7.4
Sweden ?
Norway ?
Netherlands 9.5
Iceland ?
Switzerland ?
Japan 13.6
Northern Ireland 9.2
Finland 9.4
Australia 9.9
Germany 12.2
Denmark 11.1
Canada ?
Irish Republic ?
Italy ?
Hungary ?
Austria 14.9
New Zealand ?
Luxembourg ?
Belgium 15.7
Czech Republic 36.1
France 16.2
Spain ?
USA 9.6
Greece 25.9
Portugal ?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

TomF

Oops, I made a mistake in that estimate of the road death rate in Ireland. I forgot to convert miles to kms. and by my estimate, the total distance driven should be 24.7 billion kms, which brings Ireland's road death rate way down to only 15.5 per billion kms, more like Belgium's rate.

As reparation, I decided to try refining the estimate and looked up some numbers. In 1999 Ireland's population, according to the Central Statistics Office, was 3.744 million or 3,744 thousand. According to the European Environment Agency, the number of passenger cars per 1000 capita in Ireland in 1999 was 342. This makes about 1,280,448 cars. The total deaths in Ireland in 1999 were 413.

Now, again supposing those cars drive 35 miles a day, 365 days a year, makes a total of about 25.4 billion kms driving. I recognize that this is the weakest link in the estimate, and if the distance travelled is higher, the rate will be lower.

Dividing 413 by 25.4 gives an estimated road death rate of 16.1 deaths per billion kms in 1999 for Ireland.

If Belgium has almost the same rate and has a police force that actually police the roads, maybe Ireland is doing something right after all, seeing that the Gardai don't police our roads.

Victor

Originally posted by TomF
I forgot to convert miles to kms. and by my estimate, the total distance driven should be 24.7 billion kms, which brings Ireland's road death rate way down to only 15.5 per billion kms, more like Belgium's rate.

The NRA gave me a report today "Road Accident Facts Ireland 2001" it gives the figure as 13.1 per billion km in 1996. While road deaths are down from 453 in 1996 to 411 in 2001, I think we can agree that road usage has gone up (number of vehicles went up about 30% in that time), which means the figure has dropped to perhaps 14 at most and is probably falling towards 10-12.

mike65

I remember economist Moore McDowell making the same observation on one of the Sunday moring magazine progs and the other guests were agast at the great mans reasoning that roads were in fact much safer now than they've ever been. That said, they still aint safe enough...

Mike.

TomF

"CHP [California Highway Patrol] spokesman Mike Wright said Friday that 'anarchy on freeways' will not be tolerated. 'It doesn't matter how good a driver or how good a car,' he said.

'The speed limit is the speed limit.'
...

In all, five gumballers -- out of some 140 -- were arrested: two in Marin County and three in Solano County. They were cited for reckless driving, a misdemeanor, and released after posting bail.

Their cars, however, will remain impounded for a month. Four more gumballers were ticketed for speeds exceeding 100 mph, Wright said. Ticket fees typically range from $300 to $500 per ticket, but can be less or more depending on the presiding judge.

Those arrested [included] ...Simon Hamilof of Ireland, in a 2003 Mercedes Benz SL 500... ."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/19/MN288331.DTL

yankinlk

When the law first came out it was bliss on the roads - no one was up your bumper if you DARED to drive the speed limit. Now I find we are pushing it, going 5 or 10 mph over the limit.

Nothing will change untill it starts hitting the pocketbook. I dont mean speeding fines either - THEY DO NOTHING. It has to be points on licences. When I was 15 and 9 months I got my first license. The first year I drove I paid a whopping $1200 to be insured on a 25 yearold car. (0 - 60 in 6 minutes) That year I collected 6 traffic tickets (not all of them points) I once got a ticket for "squealing my wheels" at a stop sign. I shít you not. But after that I was scared straight - it was the fear of getting too many points and my insurance being revoked that got me in order.

A freind here in Ireland loves Formula One - he thinks he's "the man" on the road. Drives insanely. Collects tickets like football stickers. All he used to do was ignore them and pay the huge fines after he got a summons (many months/years later) I hope for his sake that this new system catches and controls him.

TomF

I wonder if "Simon Hamilof" in my earlier posting should be "Simon Hamilton"? This seems more likely to be a name associated with Anglo-Ireland, and a search finds plenty of Simon Hamiltons in the North. Maybe a reporter misread a name written in a court document.

Victor

Originally posted by TomF
"Those arrested [included] ...Simon Hamilof of Ireland, in a 2003 Mercedes Benz SL 500... ."

Probably a repitition error, meant to be "Simon Hamil of Ireland"

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/597946?view=Eircomnet

Four die in accidents on roads over bank holiday weekend
From:ireland.com
Tuesday, 22nd April, 2003

Three people died in road accidents in Munster at the weekend bringing the total number killed over the bank holiday weekend to four.

Yesterday the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, warned against any complacency about this year's reduction in road deaths.

The penalty-points system had reduced road death levels and had also improved driver behaviour, the Minister's spokesman said. However, any lessening of vigilance or law enforcement could lead to an increase in road deaths, he said.

......

Mr Brennan praised Operation Taisteal, the Garda Síochána's Easter road safety campaign, and said the high visibility of gardaí was a major factor in improving driver behaviour.

Operation Taisteal, which involved 5,000 gardaí and a large number of checkpoints, ended at midnight last night. The campaign focused on speeding, drink-driving, the driving behaviour of young male drivers and the non-wearing of seat-belts.

From July 1st motorists caught without a seat-belt will receive penalty points, while uninsured drivers will be penalised from June 1st.

TomF

Excellent, Victor. I would not have thought of that. It looks as though it is a omission/repetition error because the name is "Hamill", which is certainly a northern name ("We'll call in Pat Hamill's and have a wee drop there, just to help us along to sweet Carnlough Bay").

<<Wright said the three drivers arrested in Solano County were Michael Ross of Surriton, England, Simon Hamill of Antrim, Ireland and Robert Kenworthy of London, England. Surriton and Hamill were arrested for reckless driving and Kenworthy for racing on East Highway 80 in Vacaville.>>

http://www.ktvu.com/news/2123120/detail.html