Statement on Road Safety

Full Transcript:
The last time I was knocked down, I was dressed as Big Bird. I do not quite mean that literally but I am 6 ft 1 in. and I was dressed from head to toe in bright yellow. I was going through a roundabout when a driver came in, ploughed into the side of me and I went out over the bonnet. I received the SIDNY apology, that is, “Sorry, I didn’t notice you.” It therefore does not necessarily matter how much hi-vis you are wearing. The last time my children were nearly knocked down, it was while crossing at a signalled pedestrian crossing while the driver accelerated through. This was in broad daylight while they were on their way to school, which is a critical time for vulnerable road users. The fact of the matter is that it does not matter how much high-visibility gear you are wearing. If the driver is not looking, he or she will not see you. For a vulnerable road user such as a cyclist, a pedestrian or a child walking to school, these are not trivial incidents because we are not encased in a tonne of steel that will protect us from an impact.

National Child Safety Day was 6 October. On that day, the Road Safety Authority, RSA, distributed more than 40,000 high-visibility vests to preschools all over the country. I do not know many preschoolers who walk unaccompanied on country roads at night so I do not know what earthly difference a high-visibility vest will make to them. On the same day, the RSA released its child casualties report, outlining the number of children killed or seriously injured on our roads over the past eight years. If you are a parent, the numbers are, quite frankly, frightening. A total of 56 children aged 15 years or younger were killed while a shocking 852 were seriously injured on our roads and streets, with two out of three of those kids harmed on urban roads.

How we report and what we report makes a big difference in framing the debate on this issue. From that report, we learned whether these children were walking, cycling or crossing the road when they were harmed. We also learned the age range and gender of the children harmed. I am fairly sure these were traffic collisions so I am not quite sure what difference it makes whether a child is a boy or a girl or what bearing that has on the incident. What the report does not tell us and what we do not learn is anything about the cause of the collision or incident. We do not get anything on driver behaviour or what was recorded as the cause of the incident. What message is sent out by a report that focuses solely on the victims of driver behaviour without collecting any data on the drivers or their behaviour, a report from a body that is also distributing 40,000 hi-vis vests? The message we are sending out is that walking and cycling are dangerous activities and that people should not engage in them unless wearing specialised equipment. That is not the road or street I want for myself or for my children.

We have to be clear that walking, cycling or crossing the road to get to school or to the shops is normal behaviour and should not result in children being killed, maimed or ending up in hospital. When I send my oldest child out the door, I send him off by himself. I let him make his own way across to school. He is a sensible enough young fella so off he goes on his bike. I do not worry about his behaviour. I am not worried that he will do something. I am worried about cars. If he slips off his bike and has a bang, that is part of growing up and I am happy enough to put up with that. However, what I worry about is driver behaviour. We need to allow for human behaviour. I understand what Deputy Kenny was talking about with regard to road design but we have to engineer within those designs. I absolutely hear what he says about how we can get drivers to behave and to adhere to lower speed limits but we have to engineer that in. It is about road legibility. It is not just about education and telling people to wear their helmets and hi-vis and not to cross between cars. That is part of the mix and is also important but we have to engineer a situation whereby the streets are safe for those using them.

I will talk about some of the reporting. One of the RSA’s clear responsibilities, which is indicated on its own website, is to “Report official statistics on fatal and injury collisions that have occurred on public roads in line with our statutory remit”. We are getting reports with a significant focus on the victims of road traffic incidents and not enough focus on the cause of those incidents. We also have road safety auditors and practitioners in local and State agencies tasked with road safety who do not have access to historical collision data. We hear from the RSA that there might be a general data protection regulation, GDPR, issue involved. I know the Minister of State has been in contact with the Data Protection Commissioner with a view to resolving that issue but we have to ensure the practitioners who are tasked with assessing safety on our roads have access to anonymised, comprehensive and up-to-date data such as are available in other jurisdictions. Unless we understand the root causes of the collisions taking place on our roads and while we engage in victim blaming and telling people these are unsafe activities and they should dress up in something funny, we are not going to tackle the root causes of road safety issues on our roads.