Road safety data

[riven]

Penalty points data was issued again today up to November 2007 (from October 2002). It shows that approximately 585,000 point offerces were issued. The vast majority were for speeding
link
A few weeks ago the indo said that 311,000 drivers had been issued with points up to the same period.
link
Assuming 3 penalty points is the average per offerce (worst case I guess) thats nearly 6 points per licence which is now too bad.
However it does show that approximately 15% of the driving population are offending (~2.1 million drivers) which is quite high.

I decided to snoop around the site and I found this ugly table.
link
According to it, the fatalities on the roads have decreased by 13%. However this is a misnomer as the number of vehicles/licences holders and thus drivers has increased dramatically over that time period. Thus the number of deaths per driver has decreased by approx 38% over this time period which is huge.

It would seem that the penalty points system is work though the twits doing the maths cant work it out yet.
If we take the death rate at 1998 (deaths per vehicle) and multiply that by the number of vehicles in 2005 we get the equivalent number of deaths in 2005 based on 1998 figures. That figure is:
649
The number of deaths in 2005:
399
Thus approx 250 deaths have been saved though the points system, better and safer cars and other improvements from between the two periods.

[seabhcan]

Number of vehicles increased by 41% but the number of license holders only by 21%. How are these numbers calculated?

If you drive a polish car using a polish license, which column are you counted in, if any?

[riven]

Consider haulage. Most drivers of these trucks do not own the truck but have to be licenced for it etc. I would expect a difference. I assume that licence holders includes all nationalities i.e. EU licence holder.

[HanleyS]

Penalty Points are not the only influence on road safety over that period. We have also had drink driving clampdown and our road network has improved with higher quality roads opening. The safety of our vehicles has likely increased too with the scrappage scheme and increased prosperity. The statistics are poor for injuries so we don't know what the effect on these has been.

[riven]

true but I doubt that the limited safety increases in cars over that period would have such a huge affect. The others factors as a whole though are important.
In general the stats are poor overall. We still do not have conclusive evidence to show that younger drivers are worse.

[odie1kanobe]

A Government success so guess this thread will be short and sweet.

[joel]

A Government success so guess this thread will be short and sweet.

Government success? - I wouldn't call it a success to have over half a million drivers speeding.

[grainne whale]

Not the Government, the Gardai.

[GlasgowIrish]

Number of vehicles increased by 41% but the number of license holders only by 21%. How are these numbers calculated?

If you drive a polish car using a polish license, which column are you counted in, if any?

[color=darkblue]they can drive over here without the threat of getting penalty points to their licence if they have a Polish Licence or any other European Driving Licence[/color]

New figures released by the Department of Transport show that over 25,000 penalty-point notices have been issued to people caught driving while holding a mobile phone.

The notices have been issued since the offence was introduced in July 2006.

There have been almost 600,000 different penalty point notices issued since the system was introduced in October 2002.

AdvertisementThe most common offence is speeding, with just over 450,000 people being caught for that offence since the start of the system.

According to the department figures, driving without a seat belt is the second most common offence with just over 46,000 people having penalty point notices issued for this.

[color=darkblue]Overall 133,000 notices were issued to people without a valid driving licence number - meaning they either had no licence or had a foreign one.[/color]

Penalty point notices were issued to about 13,000 people for failing to obey traffic lights, and almost 10,000 were issued for crossing a continuous white line.

The least common offences include parking a vehicle in a dangerous position - for which 12 notices were issued - while there were two notices issued for driving a vehicle while unfit

[HanleyS]

Government success? - I wouldn't call it a success to have over half a million drivers speeding.

Correction: Half a million drivers detected "speeding".

The real failure is the disparity in the figures for detections of:
1) "Speeding"
2) Drink Driving
3) Failure to wear a seatbelt / Secure child
4) Unsafe overtaking / driving on wrong side of the road

There should be a high level of detection in each of these categories. not just one.