Road deaths at forty seven year low

[He3]

This is mostly due to far fewer pedestrian deaths, while the number of drivers dying is holding close to the levels of 2007.

Thank you Gay.

A dramatic fall in the number of pedestrian casualties is the main reason why the number of fatalities on Irish roads in 2008 has been the lowest since records began.

With four days left, this year’s provisional figure of 275 deaths is 57 fewer than the previous low of 332 in 1961, when road fatalities were first recorded. The number is 63 below last year’s total of 338.

Irish road deaths are lowest in 47 years - Times Online

[SPN]

This is mostly due to far fewer pedestrian deaths, while the number of drivers dying is holding close to the levels of 2007.

Thank you Gay.

A dramatic fall in the number of pedestrian casualties is the main reason why the number of fatalities on Irish roads in 2008 has been the lowest since records began.

With four days left, this year’s provisional figure of 275 deaths is 57 fewer than the previous low of 332 in 1961, when road fatalities were first recorded. The number is 63 below last year’s total of 338.

Irish road deaths are lowest in 47 years - Times Online

It has sweet F A to do with Gaybo!

You can thank Martin Cullen for driving through the legislation that enabled random breath tests.

Gaybo is still waffling on about Privatised Greed Cameras, even though the peak in road deaths occured the month before Random Breath Tests was introduced, and the fall in road deaths has been consistent ever since.

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[He3]

Thank you Martin.

[SPN]

Thank you Martin.

Whilst Martin was responsible for bringing in the Random Breath Testing (which reduced road deaths) he was also responsible for bringing in the Metrification of Speed Limits which concided (shall we say) with a massive INCREASE in road deaths.

Here's one (or twelve) that I prepared earlier: Road Safety - October 2006 :

This series of threads was started in October 2005 because we were hearing a lot of guff from the powers that be, but seeing very little of tangible benefit on the ground.

12 months later we now have a Traffic Corps which uses second hand PSNI pursuit cars and has members straight out of Templemore who haven't even passed their driving tests. We have a dose of new penalty point offences, of which some are unenforceable, and all are unenforced.

And we have a Minister for Justice who thinks that locating Speed Cameras on the roads where the fatal accidents are happening would "be a waste of resources".


We finally got a random breath testing regime towards the end of July, and fatality rates have dropped by 50% (August) and 40% (September) as a direct result.

This is hardly surprising given that up to 60% of fatal accidents can involve alcohol - compared to somewhere in the region of 5% which involve exceeding the posted speed limit.

This was all predicted, and inevitable.

Pity Gaybo didn't get his Greed Cameras though.

Not!

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[Captcha]

Ah brilliant!





Odd that...

[toxic avenger]

It's all down to those shocking and sobering safety campaign adverts, the one below is the most harrowing one I've seen:

YouTube - Steve Coogan at his best

[Trefor1.1]

It's at an all time low in the UK as well, but there's an easy explanation - traffic moves so slow because of congestion it can't kill anyone.

[Captcha]

YouTube - irish road safety add

That's the one what most scares me.

[SPN]

It's at an all time low in the UK as well, but there's an easy explanation - traffic moves so slow because of congestion it can't kill anyone.

Or is it because they did a four year study into Greed Cameras and found that they actually made things worse - so they started concentrating on the real issues, like bad driving?

I know that drunk driving in the UK is a fraction of the incidence in Ireland, and the death rate in the UK is half the Irish rate, so direct comparisons don't really work, but we do know that properly calculated speed limits, and properly enforced traffic laws, make a whole lot of difference.

All you have to do is observe the difference between the reaction of the driver of an Irish car and an English (UK) car at a zebra crossing: The UK driver will stop for a pedestrian every time, whereas an Irish driver won't even notice that there is a pedestrian crossing.

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[Oppenheimer]

Anybody got any numbers on the average miles per person driven this year versus last? Had the thought that people may have reduced discretionary driving during the year because of the high fuel prices. It would be interesting to see if this is positively correlatable.