The appearance today of a rash of yellow stickers on illegally parked cars on Dublin's streets, signals the arrival of the Corporation's latest attempt to free the clogged arteries of the capital. The stickers serve as a warning that, when the new campaign starts in earnest in a week's time, offending vehicles will have a wheel clamp fixed to them and owners will have to pay an on-the-spot fine of £65 to have these removed. Vehicles parked on bus lanes or clearways will be towed away.
At a time when traffic jams - with all their resultant disruption, delay, waste, frustration and "road rage" - have long been a daily feature of urban life, the Corporation's initiative is both welcome and overdue. It is now more than 10 years since the ill-fated Dublin Transport Authority announced it would be introducing wheel-clamping, but the plan died with the DTA's abolition in 1987. It was proposed again by the Dublin Transport Initiative in 1994, but shelved because it was seen by motorists as draconian. Now, however, according to an AA survey, wheel-clamping is supported by a clear majority of Dublin motorists.
The steadily worsening traffic in our cities and towns is one of the less welcome side-effects of the State's economic upsurge, which has led to a flood of new cars on our roads in recent years. About 150,000 new cars are expected to be bought this year - close to treble the rate of purchase in the mid-1980s and well ahead even of last year's record of 137,000, a figure buoyed by the scrappage scheme and the rush to the sales rooms ahead of its year-end demise. If forecasts of continued prosperity are correct, the trend is unlikely to slacken. Surprising though it may seem to a driver fuming in city-centre gridlock or in a rush-hour jam on the Rock Road, Ireland still has one of the lowest rates of car ownership in Europe - 30 cars per 100 people, compared with an EU average of 43.
The boom in car sales is also a contributory factor to the appallingly high death toll on the roads: 474 people died in road accidents last year, compared with 453 in 1996, 433 in 1995 and 404 in 1994. This year's toll had reached 237 by the end of last week.
But the rising rate of car ownership does not mean we must resign ourselves to a steadily worsening death toll. Britain, with a higher rate of car ownership, has a per-capita road death rate only half that prevailing in this State. As Garda spokesmen constantly remind us, the main factor in road accidents is driver behaviour, especially drink-driving and excessive speed. There must also be a welcome, therefore, for the Cabinet's approval of the recommendations of the High Level Group on Road Safety, which include greater enforcement of speed limits, random breath-testing of drivers, and a penalty-points system for certain offences, leading to the automatic loss of a licence. This package of measures, if implemented vigorously, should save lives. But while the Government and the Garda must play their part, the prime responsibility for road safety will always remain with the individual driver - a thought worth bearing in mind on the eve of a bank holiday weekend.