Responsibility for road safety applies to cyclists and pedestrians too – not just motorists

The Irish Examiner reported recently that 184 people died in crashes last year according to provisional statistics released by the Road Safety Authority (RSA). This compared to 155 in 2022 and was the highest figure since 2016.

There was a high proportion of male fatalities, a continuation of the trend seen in 2022 of an increasing number of pedestrian deaths, and a high number of fatalities taking place at night when there is less traffic on the roads.

There has been much talk, as there always is this time of the year, about the number of deaths on our roads. 2024 is already off to a bad start in that regard and despite all the campaigns by the RSA and the road traffic enforcement by An Garda Siochana, the carnage continues.

Not just in our jurisdiction either. A spokesperson for the PSNI described as particularly shocking the high number of deaths last year of some of the most vulnerable road users including motorcyclists and pedestrians in Northern Ireland. They’ve asked pedestrians to ensure they can be seen at night.

The same advice is being dished out down south. Minister of State with responsibility for road safety Jack Chambers, the RSA, and An Garda Síochána have urged road users to pay particular attention to pedestrians. There has been a steep rise in pedestrian fatalities over the past two years with the winter months being particularly dangerous.

I bumped into a friend of mine last week and he was talking about the same thing. A former rally driver, he spent twenty years driving at speed in a controlled environment but says he is nervous when driving these days because of the poor standard of driving and the lack of visibility of pedestrians and cyclists.

He gave an example of the Tay Road in Cobh. A hundred years ago, the gentry used this road to travel by horse and trap from the west side of the town to take tea with their friends on the east side. It’s a country road that went from being a dirt track back then to a busy thoroughfare which was never designed to take the volume of traffic it now has to cope with.

I lived on it for twenty-five years and in the early eighties it was still a country road. There were no footpaths or public lighting, but I walked it regularly for exercise. By the time we left it in 2006, I had given up walking there. Many new housing estates had sprung up over the years, so the road became much busier.

Eighteen years later, the traffic has increased even further but pedestrians and cyclists continue to use this space. It’s hazardous enough in the daylight but in the dark winter evenings and early mornings it can be difficult to see these people.

Chairperson of the RSA Liz O’Donnell is particularly concerned about this. She says statistics show that if a car hits a pedestrian at 60km/h, nine out of 10 pedestrians will die. If it hits them at 30km/h, nine out of 10 of them will survive so, the impact of speed on these pedestrian deaths is really critical.

She says research shows that people are not obeying the speed limits and the RSA is urging the Government to review all national speed limits. This is very often the cry in the aftermath of a fatal accident – enforce the speed limits to reduce road deaths. That’s fair enough but we need to be realistic about this approach too.

Under the legislation proposed by Jack Chambers, speed will be reduced on national roads from 100km/h to 80km/h, on secondary roads from 80km/h to 60km/h, and in built-up towns and villages it will be drop to 30km/h.

A speed limit of 30km/h might improve the life expectancy of pedestrians but expecting drivers to adhere to it is unrealistic. I don’t think it’s enforceable but even if it was, you can’t attribute all pedestrian deaths to excessive speed or driver error. Pedestrians and cyclists must also accept some responsibility and play their part in keeping themselves safe.

I was out driving recently at 7.45am. I know the precise time because I looked at the clock on the dashboard to check it after getting a fright. It was dark and I pulled up at a stop sign before entering the main road when out the corner of my eye I saw a movement. There was someone walking beside the car, and I had no idea where that person came from.

It was a cold morning, and he was well wrapped up in dark clothing from head to toe. If I had hit him, the finger of blame would have been pointed at me. After that, for the remainder of the short journey home, I took particular notice of the pedestrians and cyclists I met along the way.

I saw one guy on a bike and the rest, a dozen or so, were pedestrians walking into town or heading in the opposite direction for the train. They were all dressed in dark clothing. The cyclist was travelling on the footpath without a light, and he too wore dark clothes.

In spite of all the road safety campaigns, some people still aren’t getting the message. Even legislators like Ciaran Cannon TD for Galway East seem a little confused. When An Garda Siochana tweeted recently about a cyclist they stopped after dark for cycling without a light and for being dressed in dark clothing he issued a strange response:

‘Disappointing to see Garda Traffic make reference to clothing here. There is no legal requirement to wear any particular kind of clothing when cycling. Making reference to clothing creates confusion about the law and leads to victimisation of cyclists, often in court.’

I give up.