It is “no coincidence” Northern Ireland recorded its highest annual number of fatalities on its roads at a time of financial cutbacks, a senior PSNI officer has said.
“My plea would be, if you really want to tackle road safety, then we’ve got to reinvest in road policing officers,” Chief Superintendent Sam Donaldson told the Stormont’s Infrastructure committee on Wednesday.
Chief Supt Donaldson, who is also the chair of the Northern Ireland Road Safety Partnership, said that on average, five people die on the roads on the island of Ireland each week.
A total of 255 people lost their lives in collisions on Ireland’s roads in 2023, 184 in the Republic of Ireland and 71 in the North. In both jurisdictions it was the highest total in about 10 years.
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Chief Supt Donaldson said the current figure for 2024 was 80 road deaths in the South and 26 in the North.
He emphasised the long-standing, “positive” cross-Border co-operation on the issue and said that at a meeting with gardaí last week, both forces agreed to “plan out a number of days” to carry out shared operations this year.
The police chief outlined to the committee a £141 million (€165 million) shortfall facing the PSNI and said it was “no coincidence that 2023 was the highest number of fatalities for some years, it was the least amount of money we’ve spent on education, and by coincidence we took 21 proactive police officers out of road policing.
“If we want to keep people safe on our roads we’ve got to invest.”
Chief Supt Donaldson said approximately 170 officers were currently members of its roads policing unit, which was 10 per cent less than in 2014. Financial pressures last year meant “we had no choice but to reduce the number of officers in road policing roles”, and one inspector, two sergeants and 18 constables – a total of 21 – were removed from proactive “interceptor” roles.
He said the number of road deaths had fallen from the 1970s until 2010, but since then has plateaued.
“I’m not saying we’re tolerating it, but ... I think we’re really, really struggling to drive it down any further.”
In 2023, there were almost 80,000 detections for speeding by road safety vans, and about 40,000 detections by police officers for all types of road offending, but this figure was “slightly down” compared with the previous 12 months.
“I think that’s related to the fact that we now have less police officers on the ground and therefore I think it’s inevitable that the detections will slightly go down,” Chief Supt Donaldson said.
The police officer said additional measures under consideration included introducing speed awareness courses before rather than after drivers were caught speeding, though the money for such programmes was not currently available.
He also said fines could be increased, and while figures were not yet under consideration, some fixed penalty notices in England and Wales were now at £200.
Other cost-effective measures that have been implemented include the use of social media to share hard-hitting road safety campaigns from archives.
He also discussed the role of mobile phone use in collisions and said “anecdotally there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that mobile phones are a factor”.
Where previously the issue had been people making calls while driving, “people are now using their mobile phones to communicate via WhatsApp, to check the news ... now the issue is the person’s attention is diverted away from the road, it’s down to the device that’s on their lap or in their hand and they’re focusing on something else rather than the road.”
He said it was “really difficult” to catch people using their mobile phones while driving, and while technology was available to detect people speeding, using a phone or not wearing a seat belt, “they cost a horrendous amount of money and we simply don’t have the money to invest in those right now.”
The answer was better education and “probably lies in the vehicles, in the manufacturers ... when you get in the vehicle, you should not be able to use your mobile phone,” he said.
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