Martin,
I think the RSA should aim for achievable targets!!

I think people were more careful on the roads so they would see less of that self obsessed arrogant knob Gay Byrne everywhere. That mans ego is incredible, can’t stand him.

Yeah, because it’s not like he had a successful broadcasting career or anything.

Ahem.. Mental health, suicide. Sssshhhhhh ahem sssshhhh…

Very good point. Probably most people have been impacted by suicide it is definitely time to shift focus to deal with this issue.

Absolutely, Government need to face up to the mental health crisis. 600 suicides, many more attempted and thousands of self-harm victims. Great work done on the roads now let’s do the same with mental health!

That and the car manufacturers improving safety systems in cars or at least they claim,

And emigration.
And unemployment.
And this year we’ve lost a record amount of Irish, abroad.
Although this is a good news story, our roads/drivers are really no better.

I agree john cash, less people here means less of everything including fewer road deaths. It’s only natural.

What I would like to see is the number of road deaths expressed as a percentage of the number of cars on the road from 2000 – 2012. That would paint a much clearer picture of what’s reducing the fatalities

Reasonable point John Cash. Wouldn’t have factored it in.

John Cash a proper & legitimate point. This is the biggest contributor to the decrease in road deaths bar none. While I do agree with certain policies of road safety & we have moved things on in our attitudes the rsa continue to persecute professional drivers & the safest drivers on the road with the purpose of generating money. Since its establishment I have never once been stopped by the rsa in my car & I have travelled all over Ireland & as a professional I have been stopped on many occassions & questioned many times without prosecution but still I see this as a balance that needs to be addressed. What I would say to Gay Byrne is stop preaching to the converted & tackle the real issues of road safety including infrastructure short comings & secondary road conditions. Gardai & speed cameras on motorways only generate money not promote safety.

This is not due to emigration, the maths just don’t add up. If 45,000 people emigrated from Ireland during 2012 (that’s a rough figure, final figures are not yet available) That is a decrease of approximately 1.5% in the population. The number of fatalities decreased by much more than that. In rough terms, 161 fatalities is one per 25000 people in the state. If those 45,000 hadn’t emigrated, the total would be roughly 163, which would still be a substantial decrease from last year. Add to this the fact that many of those emigrating are young people who due to a lack of employment prospects were unable to run a car and your theory is entirely un-substantiated. The negativity from people on the journal who want to pour cold water on every good news story is shocking.

Sure half the people doin the crashin are in Aus, an the other half can’t afford to drive anymore, take a drive around the country yourself an see what the initiatives of the last six years have turned country places into, was out last night myself an the place was near empty, an that’s even with people returning for the holiday period.
This country has turned into a joke by your “initiative makers”.!

Spot on Philip

@ Philip. I think you nailed it there. Money is gone, young lads with fast days are gone.

Cars not days.

@ Philip – you obviously don’t value saved lives very highly if you are bemoaning the local being half empty.
There should be zero tolerance for alcohol and driving.

Should we allow drink driving just do greedy publicans can charge outrageous prices – reality please.

Well said

You’re right, on any positive article, scratch that, ANY article there is the negative spin doctors. They probably look at us as being naive but I’d rather be a bit naive than that cynical

New profile pic Eileen?

???

Yeah a man who never sat a driving test and was given a full licence in the amnesty and refused to do a test as an example is very hard to take serious as a rep of the RSA

There’s always one :)

Brian it’s not the boy’s with the pimped out cars you need to worry about some of the girls are 10 times worse and as for female drivers using mobile phones especially doing the school runs. You pass any public house with a line of cars parked outside are they all drinking soft drinks? Zero tolerance on drinking and driving. All cyclists to adhere to the rules of the road and be insured.

Great idea. Collecting bicycle insurance premiums from 5 year old kids will have a positive impact on Uncle Gaybo’s numbers.

There is far less of these eye sores on the road since the recession kicked in. A lot of these lads used to work in construction and now they’re either gone or can’t afford to run a car. I for one am delighted they have decreased in numbers, loud, stupid looking cars.

A joke that there using this clown who never sat a driving test.

Is there less road users? .

Absolutely, it is quite evident.

How’s it quite evident? Personally I haven’t noticed any difference in traffic volumes….

Less people working, less people commuting, less people owning a car. Emigration. It is not merely a personal observation (although I do travel 25k miles annually)

The sight of there being no bumper to bumper gridlock in cork city every morning and evening tells me that there’s less traffic. You could even point out that there’s less buses

Obviously with massive unemployment and mass emigration there are less cars on the road. The real fall was in pedestrians which means the RSA should shift their focus onto these areas an tackle the poor facilities available for crossing the road! The root cause for every accident needs to be addressed to develop a plan of action. Do-ing people on major roads and motorways for noise related speed limits just doesn’t cut it any more and with the mass exodus of people plus the reduction in people working the figures are welcome but just not very impressive

Traffic volume is rarely a factor in road deaths. Very often they seem to involve a single vehicle on country roads in the early hours.

Simple stats. Reduce the pool and the stats will change. If the car is not tgere to have the accident it will not happen. Especially in small country areas where economic impact is greatest. However I imagine that the pedestrian fatalities (the major bulk of reduction) are urban.

But what I was referring to was that traffic volumes this year (taking into account unemployment etc) aren’t any lower than it was last year or year before so don’t believe this is the reason for less road deaths this year.

87000 people left the country and many lost jobs

Paddy
Where did you get the stats on emigration? I also thought the number of people in employment held steady on the previous year?

Taken from CSO I’d imagine, the following is quoted from their press release

“Emigration from Ireland in the twelve months to April 2012 is estimated to have increased to 87,100 from 80,600 in the year to April 2011, while the number of immigrants is estimated to have fallen marginally to 52,700 from 53,300 over the same period. These combined changes resulted in an increase in the net outward migration from 27,400 in the year to April 2011 to 34,400 in the year to April 2012.”

In terms of traffic fatalities, 27.4k couldn’t have a significant effect when you take into account the number of road users and the percentage drop in fatalities.
Well done to the RSA for working hard on this, and to everyone for being more responsible on our roads. Hope this figure keeps going down.

The stats are there however, how they are read needs to be done with caution. The outward migration is generally a demographic that are at high risk of road fatalities being young. The majority are those who have been made unemployed or have come off the dole. The fact that figures of unemployment have remained steady means that as many people have been sacked as have left the dole que and emigrated. The demographic of inward migrants is unknown but is likely to consist of families where there are only one or two who are drivers. Another point is that we are likely to have less younger drivers as those who come out of college with no job are less likely to buy a car.

I am not saying that the measures adopted have not plate a part, but so have the better roads, shorter journeys, better cars, car testing etc. outward migration and unemployment is also a factor. This plus the fact that the main drop was related to pedestrians means that less emphasis needs to be placed on the revenue collection operation of pointless speeding fines penalising those doing a couple of km over the limit, especially when the limit was not developed for safety. The RSA need to concentrate on the actual current cause of fatalities, whatever that may be.

I remember when road fatalities was over 300, its now almost half of that. I dont think half our population has emigrated.

Ok ur talking about the amount of people that left the country, fair enough but u also need to remember all those that got on the road for the first time.. Aswel as that just because there is a lot of people unemployed does not mean less traffic. People who don’t work do drive so those unemployment figures are pointless when it comes to traffic.