There has been a dramatic fall-off in the number of patients presenting for treatment at the National Spinal Injuries Unit as a result of road traffic accidents since the introduction of the penalty points system, according to a new study.
The study by staff at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, where the unit is based, found the numbers admitted with spinal injuries after road traffic accidents halved in the first six months after the introduction of penalty points for speeding offences.
Dr David Healy, one of the doctors involved in the study, said that between November 2002 and April 2003 there were 17 road traffic-related admissions to the unit compared to 34 over the same period a year earlier.
The level of admissions was also low compared to the same period of other previous years. There were 26 admissions to the unit following road traffic accidents between November 2000 and April 2001 and 36 admissions over the same periods in 1998/1999 and 1999/2000.
"Firstly we looked at it because we noticed our workload was down. We were not as busy managing road traffic accident victims as we had been before the introduction of penalty points," Dr Healy explained.
Details of the study, which will be presented at a symposium in Galway next week, were outlined in this week's Irish Medical Times.
Asked yesterday how he could be sure penalty points were the real reason for the fall in admissions, Dr Healy said the fall could be due to one of three reasons: the introduction of penalty points, the possibility that road traffic accident victims were sustaining more serious injuries and not surviving to be admitted to the unit, or some other factor such as better weather conditions contributing to fewer accidents.
However, he felt the most likely reason was the introduction of penalty points.
"We do think its more than a coincidence that admissions with spinal injuries fell so significantly after drivers were warned to slow down or they would get penalty points on their licence," he said.
He added that a similar study would have to be conducted again in a year's time to determine if the effect of penalty points had worn off.
"We continue to monitor this trend to determine whether this is a transient response or a fundamental behavioural shift," he said.
The fall in admissions to the unit due to road traffic accidents has had a knock-on effect on admissions to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. However, Dr Mark Delargy, consultant in rehabilitation medicine at the hospital, said admissions tended to fluctuate every year and he was not able to say whether the most recent reduction was due to "seasonal variations".
"The trend is interesting but it needs further analysis to determine if this is a reduction that is going to be maintained," he said.
Meanwhile, the study also found that 75 per cent of those admitted to the National Spinal Injuries Unit following road traffic accidents were men in their early 30s.