French Traffic

From Fine Gael:

Fine Gael Road Safety Spokesman Shane McEntee TD has called on the Government to speed up implementation of a nationwide speed camera system after a similar scheme in France slashed road deaths by 35% in five years.

I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that the speed camera system is the cause of the 35% drop. France has about 1000 speed cameras, four times less than the United Kingdom. While the drop in road deaths in the UK has been similar to the drop of road deaths in Ireland.

In France, traffic deaths have been continuously trending downward since at least 1970, long before speed camera were introduced. The big cause of the dip seems to have been the tougher policy of curbing drink driving. Also, road fatalities were much greater in rural areas than on main motorways. Considering that speed camera are not going to be placed mainly on main roads, it is unlikely that the camera themselves will slow people down.

As for Labour’s idea:

The Labour Party believes that rigorous enforcement and modernisation of the driver training and testing regime is key to improving safety.

The problem with that is that while they are quite right in what they say, many of the bad drivers are already on the road.

The main result of the speed cameras in France was the publicity they caused. That made people think about their actions and their speed and realise they had to slow down. As I have said before, it is all about responsibility.