Reduce speed and 'Arrive Alive', urges new road safety campaign

A senior insurance industry figure has called on motor insurers to reward greater road safety with reduced premiums.

The call came yesterday from Mr Paul Donaldson, vice president of the Irish Insurance Federation, at the launch of the National Safety Council "Arrive Alive" road safety campaign.

Mr Donaldson said premiums will come down as the rate of accidents reduce and the cost of dealing with claims, particularly injury claims, reduces.

"The prospects going forward already look much better and I think that has been reflected in some of the premium reductions we've seen already from various companies as we go through 2003," he said.

When pressed why insurers seemed reluctant to reduce premiums for drivers with no points, he stressed it was a matter for the individual firms.

As part of its "Arrive Alive" campaign, the NSC is urging motorists to reduce their speed over the coming June Bank Holiday weekend. During the same weekend last year, five people lost their lives on Irish roads.

NSC chief executive Mr Pat Costello said speeding motorists trying to make "minuscule time savings" were risking not only losing their licence, but their lives.

"Speeding extends the distance necessary to stop a vehicle, and increases the distance it travels while the driver reacts to a dangerous situation. At 60 m.p.h. a car will travel 88 feet in one second - that's quite a distance in an instant and not a lot of time to react," he said.

He denied the recent revelation that just three fixed speed cameras are in operation at any one time was damaging to the road-safety drive under way.

"The gardaí have an integrated strategy whereby they have static cameras, portable cameras, and they also have over 400 hand- held laser guns. The gardaí are certainly doing their job on the enforcement side of things."

There had been a clear reduction in speed since the introduction of penalty points with 16 fewer lives lost on Irish roads to date in 2003 compared with the same period last year.

However, a marked increase in road deaths in May was a worrying trend. So far this month there have been 35 fatalities on the roads compared with 20 last May.

"May in 2002 was one of the lowest rates at 20, but it is a cause for concern this May with 35 fatalities to date - it's a significant increase. We have had bad weather, but that's not really presented as an excuse. However, there is an underlying positive trend."

The National Safety Council was working with the Motorcycle Action Group to try to reduce the numbers of fatal accidents involving motorcyclists. "But it really comes down to training," Mr Costello said.

Gardaí will begin Operation Taisteal from midnight tomorrow until midnight on June 2nd. The operation will focus on targeting speeding, drink-driving and non-wearing of seat belts over the holiday weekend.

Assistant Garda Commissioner Mr Tony Hickey said the force would deploy as many resources as possible into the weekend operation. In time he hoped a full-time traffic bureau would be established within the Garda Síochána. There were not sufficient resources at present for such a step, he added.