Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD pay more heed to the recommendations of the Road Safety Authority (RSA) instead of disbanding it, a road safety campaigner whose teenage daughter was knocked down and killed at a pedestrian crossing has said.
As one of its last acts before the next general election, the government wants to disband the RSA. Minister of State for Road Safety James Lawless told The Journal this week he believes the RSA’s variety of functions are all facing problems that are not being adequately dealt with.
Cabinet ministers are expected to receive a memo that would propose splitting up the RSA’s functions and creating two new bodies – one that would deal with safety and another than would take on roles such as administering driving tests and coordinating the NCT.
Leo Lieghio is the Vice-President of the Irish Road Victims Association, a campaigning organisation that provides support for people who have been bereaved or injured by road collisions.
In 2005, his 16-year-old daughter Marsia was knocked down by a driver at a pedestrian crossing and died in hospital.
Lieghio has said the RSA is being blamed for problems but that the ultimate power to take action lies with the government.
“I think the RSA are being used as a scapegoat. There’s a lot of good people in there working hard to try to save lives,” Lieghio said, speaking to The Journal.
He said the RSA does not currently have the authority it would need to implement effective changes and has “had to work with their hands tied”.
He added that the RSA can put forward recommendations and produce advertising and promotional campaigns but that decision-making power ultimately lies with the government.
Minister Lawless told The Journal earlier this week that be believes the operational side of the RSA is “not working” and its safety promotion remit is “not where it needs to be”.
He said the problems are both compounding and distracting from each other.
“If there’s a board meeting dominated by discussion on NCT delays and licence failures, there’s not the same time being afforded to discussion on road safety, for example,” Lawless said.
A growing number of devastating road collisions in recent years has raised public attention to the issue of road safety and led to increased calls for high-level action to tackle dangerous driving.
This year, as of Friday, 143 people have died in road crashes. 57 of them were drivers, 30 were passengers, 26 were pedestrians, and 17 were motorcyclists. Nine were cyclists, three were on an e-scooter, and one was recorded in a “pillion passenger/other” category.
Lieghio said the government is “very slow” to implement any changes around road safety.
“The RSA recommended double penalty points a while back and they wanted to implement graduated speeding penalties. They’re still waiting on that,” he said.
He also criticised the limited rollout of new average speed cameras.
Two cameras were introduced this weekend on the N3 in Cavan and the N5 in Mayo – “Two, by the end of the year. Why not more?” Liegho questioned.
Looking forward, Liegho also called for consequences handed down by the courts for dangerous driving to become more serious, especially for repeat offenders, to dissuade drivers from acting irresponsibly.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
RSA and not fit for purpose, NCT is a shambles, driving test is a nightmare, road conditions are a mess, So with that record I’m sure it will get increased funding and powers.
@087 bed: what’s wrong with NCT?
@087 bed: nothing wrong with the nct.
@087 bed: Nothing wrong with the NCT and road conditions are far from a mess. They have never been of a better quality. You keep whinging and moaning if it helps you excuse the miserable life you created fir yourself.
@Sun Rise: Lol! 75% of deaths happen on roads that have been the same size for 100s of years. The utopian society you mention is in your head.
@Thesaltyurchin: Road size doesn’t matter. Another uneducated turd like you spreading BS.
@Thesaltyurchin: if you drive like a turd, you will crash, period. And Irish are definitely bad drivers with a licence so easy to obtain it’s a joke,
@Alex: Yea those octogenarians are a real speed hazard, lol! Stay on the bus Alex.
@087 bed: And they’ve lazily used GDPR to stop access to accident data which is vital information for road safety engineering, not one other European country used that excuse. Don’t scrap the RSA just get them to do their darn jobs. Fire folk if needed.
How come no one is asked where the money is spent? How much are they paying staff, CEO ect.
@Kangaroo Kev: Did we not pay attention the first time around. The governments policy is a “campaign of awareness” so 100s of millions in advertising space and media time to keep beating the same drum, over and over… it’s never worked, will never work but is a great cover for actually doing anything in the transport space, maybe thats why we haven’t built ANY infrastructure in 20 years!! 20 years and people on here are like ‘the road quality has never been better’, mind boggling. I agree with the author tho. usually in ireland when we berate something for not working it’s because it’s underfunded in the first place, never really has a chance to work. (also a shrewd business strategy but, I digress). We need leaders of vision, no jobbing accountants looking to play with numbers. People who can build the roads/trains/services we need and then organis everyone accordingly… never happen
I would personally blame the actions of an unsafe driver for killing a pedestrian on a pedestrian crossing.
Government and RSA can nanny all they want, but if the drivers don’t take personal responsibility for their apalling driving and stretching the rules nothing will change. The selfish driving and not considering the other road users is the norm. Many drive on the physical limits like unruly children, and instead of personal responsibility we have speedbumps which seem to be the only way to control the speeds that really has any effect.
“Crap driving kills”.
Leo is incorrect, the RSA are not being disbanded. The mundane stuff like vehicle registration, testing, etc. will be under a different body. Road safety will still be the RSA’s remit. The biggest issue is the lack of management & accountability within the organization. Doubling penalty points is unlikely to have that great an impact. You can pass your test at 17 and you never have your driving skills tested again! About time a ten year retest or training required for all drivers.
@Mitchell: absolutely staff for ncts and driving tests need retraining . Every time go for nct there is always 1 or 2 with bad attitudes and failings for silly little things . They not happy doing the same job over and over then they fail u .
@Karen Marten: ‘fail you for silly things’… like you fail the test or you dont I would have thought?
RSA are a joke, they need to go, or be fully replaced. What have they done or what campaign have they launched this last few years???
@Bills n Stuff: typical, blame rsa because drivers don’t want to drive within the law. These divers are adults but need to grow up.
@Joe Kelly: 60% drop in road deaths since 2007, introduction of ADIs, introduction of compulsory training. They can’t enforce the laws and people need to take responsibility for their own actions.
@james lynch: The irony is that our numbers are down yet we’re still screaming at each other, beautifully played marketing department.
The RSA been disbanded is not about getting rid of the functions, it’s about breaking it into to seperately organisations. 1 to look after driver testing etc and 1 to solely focus on road safety.
The government is saying the RSA is bogged down with testing and doesn’t have enough bandwidth for safety.
Whether true or not, it’s not a ridiculous idea to allow an organisation to focus on specialist area
@Colm O’ Shea: I agree that the two new bodies to replace the RSA are a good idea, as each needs to have different supervisory and management styles. One process and mechanical, the other more marketing and infrastructure focused.
@D Farrell: So we are going to end up with two very expensive QUANGO s instead of one??. RSA are a useless outfit except for those who work in it,– surely a great organization for all of them. The money that they spend should go to providing a fully dedicated Roads Policing Service with plenty of cars and motorcycles and jeeps travelling on all roads and pulling over the dangerous drivers . I’m not a great fan of fixed penalties, just haul them before the Courts and dish out suspensions ,– put them off the roads for 6 months .
Anyone who is handed a driving ban of more than 3 months should have to retake their driving test. Also no going back to court to have their licence restored before the ban has been served.
@Paddy Whelan: I’ve always wondered that. If someone clocks up 12 points and loses their license. When can they get it back? Three years or when the furthest points come off their license? They should have to do theory and lessons and test again! But
I have yet to see one article where the RSA ever called out the state of Irish roads, oh wait silly me they are funded by the state so wont bite the hand that feeds them…..we do need an RSA just not one thats clearly not another bloated quango like RTE, Irish Water etc
@Tom Newell: more or less self funded so check your facts
The ‘republic’s’ solution, get rid of something, give it a different name performing in the exact same manner. Quango’s galore with management on ridiculous money, it will never change. Maybe get more Gardaí on the roads, oh, sorry, thou shall not accuse McEntee of complete and utter incompetence.
Drive LicenceTesting, and it’s current format should be removed from the RSA in its entirety. It’s outdated and unfit for purpose. So many variants of basic controls from different manufacturers, it’s an area where it’s getting quite hard to deliver universal instructions.
Some of the newer smart cars will tell you when the car is ready to change gear where the rsa instructor disagrees and marks it down as bad gear transition. This is only one example of where instructors are having problems with newer technology in vehicles.
I also don’t believe the theory test covers enough driver safety. This surely should be one of the areas where a driver must do a dedicated safety session, possibly as long as two hours, incorporated into the driving lessons portion of obtaining one’s licence.
Working in the industry and teaching and experiencing 1st hand what people do to us and other road users is disgraceful.. The whole area needs to be looked at. People don’t follow rules of the road, if they did things would be different. How many people run stop signs, red lights, zebra crossings, break speed limits, its actually crazy watching this behaviour every single day. All this needs to be addressed. More traffic police for every violation of the rules of the road needs to be out there. Not just in cities, all over the country. More cameras needed. Drivers from other countries need to be educated also. It’s all a shambles and it just goes on and on. We are the people on the ground and we see what needs to be done so why do the RSA not…….!!!!
Poor driving is a huge factor in a lot of crashes. Driving out of town yesterday and someone on a motorbike overtook me doing a wheelie while they were speeding, like wtf, did he/she think they were cool or were they trying to impress someone? If I had a dashcam I would 100% give the footage to the Gardai. Some of the driving you see is actually scary and every county should have a 24/7 traffic corps. Education clearly isnt getting through to some people so enforcement is the only way to get through to them.
There are at least two local road sections near me where somebody has almost been and others will be killed due to both road and driver error. Is there a forum or hotline to draw attention to these.
Lusk
@Thor24/7: Watching two lorries try to pass each other on a regional road last week, some poor granny got too close and the lads had to jump down to reverse her car… mad sh!t Was thinking the same at the time, there should be a way to communicate hazardous roads, but that would sort of be highlighting the lack of investment so not sure what organisation would do that to themselves. They would need to be in governemnt to improve society as opposed to individual or party gain (which is what we have) Maybe if set up by the public, could be quite successful Thor! Would be shocking tho
Government will privatise RSA functions as someone sees dollar signs in it …NCTS for instance !!. They are already kite flying that it’s loosing 20 million a year….LOOSING 20 MILLION !!
This is the same road we went down with Irish Water and it failed.
Privatising any part of the RSA will end in disaster. The RSA is fit for purpose. Our lilly livered government isn’t.
Typical bull like gardai wasting time trialing a truck to see if it works when they could have just got 12 of them and get straight at it !!!! But no, government won’t provide the funding. The is what’s wrong , no courage , no out of the box thinking and no urgency doing anything while people die.
Drew Harris is the man to blame here , he should be SCREAMING for funds, he’s not.
Absolutely the RSA should be shut down, it is like the HSE,– a top heavy orginasition paying huge money to CEO and C/Man and members of Boards . Another useless QUANGO . They waste huge money of useless adverts on RTE and making video’s etc. what is required id strengthening of Road Policing by getting more cars manned by Gardai out onto the roads and stop all this crazy driving . But sure the Government cannot get young people to join the Guards because they won’t pay them decent wages .Hopefully a new Government and new Minister for Justice and an Irish Commissioner might change things for the better .
have your say