Forgive me for nit picking but I’d like to know if all 186 were motorists. Seems I heard of at least 2 pedestrians killed on the roads. And can you give penalty points to unlicensed motorists and morons walking or cycling on M roads as I’ve witnessed on many occasions

Id say a lot more has to do with the system of driver education , improved road network ,the nct and that cars themselves getting safer rather than the penalty points system.

Penalty points for speeding should only be looked at after the speed limits are all fixed, the fact that doing 60 outside a school at 3pm and doing 140 on the m50 at 2am carry the same penalty is madness.

If motorway/ DC speeds were dynamic and based on conditions and the limit on the likes of the m7 and certain parts of the m50 was raised to 160km/h , and the 30km zone scrapped in dublin then I would support looking at the penalty points system.

The AA are wrong where they state that speeding “should” involve more than one offence. It does. In certain circumstances speeding could involve careless or dangerous driving.

The RSA need to liaise with the relevant Medical Bodies to determine what proportion of the 211 deaths involve young males without third party vehicles where on detailed examination there is a high suspicion of suicide . This then need to be tackled in a specific manner with proper funding as the enforcement of road safety regulations won’t do any thing to prevent these tragedies happening to the degree that they do. Perhaps the Journal could take a useful role here in terms of verifying the extent to which this may be occurring. The numbers are not likely to be small unfortunately.

“Last year 186 people were killed on Irish roads”, down from 411 in 2011
Last year was 2011, and if 2010 was meant the figure was 212 not 411.

Ive no doubt the penalty points system has had an effect on making our roads safer, but surely it can’t be
given all the credit. in 2002 we have motorways to the level of a bypass of the odd town. Now we have point to point motorway systems across the country. The network itself would have to take alot of the credit for making our roads safer. That and the crack down on drink driving.

12 penalty points for being a chav driving a Honda Civic. Automatic disqualification. A huge part of the problem solved.

I just did some maths; you are 8 times more likely to die in Cavan due to a road accident than if you are in Dublin!!!

Reduction in deaths on the road has nothing at all to do with the quality of our infrastructure being improved? Look at the per county statistics, back end of nowhere counties with crap roads have higher deaths than those with plenty of motorways / dual carriageways? Thought so.

Of course if the RSA had their way everyone would get penalty points just for opening their car door. Imagine, if we had all drivers off the road we’d be the best boys the whole of Europe!

If only we had more Gardai to enforce them!

Maybe if they when and got all the ADIs to teach people how to drive properly instead of teaching them to pass a test. It seams to be a big money making racket with a smoke screen of road safety.

“Minister Varadkar’s review include proposals that penalty points be increased for 11 offences including those linked to the most dangerous driver behaviour such as speeding”

So speeding is more dangerous than drunk driving, not wearing a seatbelt, dangerous overtaking, use of a mobile phone, or careless driving?

I agree with the AA about the standardisation of speeding limits across the country. In and around Dublin there are some ridiculous limits which need to be sorted.

The N4 is a perfect example. I drove it from Junction 4 (Leixlip/Adamstown) to Junction 1 (M50) yesterday. That’s a distance of around 5km. It is an 80kph limit for a three lane dual carriageway. I tried to stay at the speed limit and in the left lane. In the few minutes I was on the road I was overtaken by a couple of hundred cars and trucks. Therefore every single one of those were technically breaking the law and would have incurred penalty points if there had been guards on the section of road.

A speed limit is the max your allowed drive on a specific road. Not a target. If a rural speed limit is 80kpm doesn’t mean u drive at 80. You drive to the road, traffic and weather conditions.

RSA is a revenue collecting under the pretence of safety. improvement in car safety and better road infrastructure has had the biggest difference in saving lives.
RSA has obsession with speed fines
NCT is a tax under the pretence of safety test when it is back dated to cars anniversary and a test for a year(s)
RSA need to focuse on road safety instead of revenue generating.

They really need to look at where speed checks are carried out. To me they are always on long wide straight roads where d speed limit is strangely low eg n4 or even M50. Also have a problem with them treating d old now bypassed roads as accident blackspots to justify d white vans. I live on one and while it used to be dangerous since d bypass accidents dropped almost 100%. dont even get me started on d 2 penalty points got on d same bypassed road coz they decided to change its speed limit to 80 before changing it back. do I deserve a refund? If someone in jail for something that becomes legal would be released….

Wish they would tackle the Irish habit of pedestrians crossing roads when they see a “gap” in traffic instead of at the lights , we must have spent a small fortune on traffic lights putting them up in dublin in particular at every conceivable place and yet people habitually cross where it suits , too lazy to walk the further 25 yards to cross and laugh at the concept of green man , spot fine for jay walking might reduce the thousands of injured pedestrians each year now that we chastised the motorists with points , ramps 30 zones and speed traps ad nauseam.

With the way the countryside is being built up with one-off housing every road will soon be in a 60kph or 50kph zone… that’ll solve it.

Do we actually need the RSA any more? And all the other govt ads telling us how to safely use a tin opener?!!!
Budget cuts are needed dammnit let’s start with these quangos

Here’s a link to the per county death statistics / ratio http://twitpic.com/aw9v7b

I agree that speed is a killer but the RSA want to reduce speed but as far as I know they do not have the authority to set the speed limits on the road as this is still held with the Councils and NRA. I have been on roads and just because they are a National Road the speed limit is 100KPH and it should be max 80KPH and then I have been on roads that are 60KPH which could easily be 80KPH. Basically people can lobby to get speed’s increased or decreased for their local agenda and safety is not key to the speed limit.

I also think the road deaths are down due to the fact our roads have improved (motorways), vehicles have improved with saftey features such as ABS etc and the NCT has made people change the attitude they have towards vehicles and get the car fixed.

Look if there are no guards enforcing the points system then the system will not be seriously effective.
It is obvious to everyone that you will not see a guard going after the so called boy racers and people who are speeding around urban areas are happy to sit on the motorway picking off cars to get the quota in.
The guards are not doing their jobs as they couldn’t be bothered with the paperwork.