Irish drivers think they are best (c) Galway Advertiser

[Benjamin]

Recent Europe-wide research places Irish drivers second in a list of 23 countries in terms of confidence in their driving ability. Only Italian drivers scored better than 1,000 Irish drivers when asked “are you a better driver than other drivers on the road?”
“This macho driving complex is very prevalent on Irish roads and I have no doubt it contributes to Ireland’s high accident rate,” said Ailbhe Sharp, manager of the RAC School of Motoring. “I do believe a high number of drivers have an over-confident attitude and a significant number consider themselves indestructible..
“These recently issued results provide an interesting snapshot of the attitudes of more than 24,000 drivers from 23 countries across Europe. A key finding for Ireland is that although we are not bottom of the pile in terms of our behaviour and attitude to road safety, we are far from being top of the class.”
The figures were revealed in the Social Attitudes to Road Traffic Risk in Europe which brings together the agencies responsible for road transport in 23 countries across Europe.
Some of the key findings with regard to Irish drivers:

• * 20 per cent say they make at least one mobile phone call per day while driving. Ireland is in the top seven least likely to make a call. European average was 28 per cent of drivers who make at least one call per day while driving.
  * Only three per cent of drivers had been checked for alcohol more than once by a Garda within the last three years. Only Italy provided a lower figure at one per cent. The best in class were Finland and Estonia with 38 and 33 per cent.
  * 18 per cent say they enjoy driving fast. Ireland reported the lowest figure of drivers who like to drive fast and Poland was the highest with 45 per cent.
  * Only 13 per cent of drivers were caught for speeding within the last year (either very few Irish drivers are speeding or there is very little enforcement on Irish roads). This result puts us in the bottom quarter as opposed to countries like Netherlands or Switzerland which had
  results of 36 and 46 per cent of drivers who had been fined for speeding within the last year.
  * 22 per cent believe it is not necessary to wear a seatbelt if one drives carefully. We are just above the European average; Finland, Denmark and Germany had the highest level of compliance with seat belt wearing with results for this question of five, seven, and eight per cent respectively.

“The worrying aspects of these results for Irish motorists are that our levels of enforcement of drink driving and speeding laws seems to lag far behind the other countries in the survey,” says Sharp.
“ Hopefully, the establishment of the full time Garda Traffic Corps will help to improve this situation. However, it is also worrying that more than one in five Irish motorists feels it is OK to drive without a seatbelt provided they drive carefully - this is another example of the misplaced ‘I am indestructible’ complex of some drivers. Drivers and passengers should always wear a seatbelt – it is the law and it has been proved beyond doubt that it can save your life.”