Road Safety |
Deaths reduced 47% thanks to speed cameras |
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The NRA has claimed that farmers are causing up to 50 road deaths per year because they are refusing access to lands. This is both offensive to farmers and
incorrect. Road safety is a complex matter and involves such issues as the
quality of road
design and construction , legislation, enforcement, culture and so on. If
the NRA, an animation of the state, were really committed to road safety then it
might consider following the example of the British Government. The Sunday
Times today, August 19th 2001, reported that in the U.K. ;
"the government believes that speed cameras are an effective way of improving road safety and cites a 47% reduction in deaths and serious injuries at sites where cameras have been erected. It has therefore decided to extend the scheme of allowing police and local authority partnerships to reinvest revenue raised to fund more cameras. The forces joining the scheme are Staffordshire, North Wales and Lancashire." Working on a pro-rata basis, this approach, if applied to Ireland, would save about 200 lives per year, 4 times the number in the NRA unproven claim. If road safety is of such importance to the NRA - as indeed it should be - then it should immediately take this proposal up with the Irish government. The NRA might consider in the first instance taking the matter up with Tanaiste Mary Harney who played such an important role in the decision to build motorways and then with the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr. Dempsey who also had a significant hand in the matter and who has direct responsibility for roads. "Cashing in on Speed Cameras" |