Does the RSA really want to save lives?

This may sound a bit extreme, in the style of the most paranoid conspiracy theories doing the rounds on the blogosphere. So I'm not saying I genuinely believe the following to be true, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless. Namely: does the Irish Road Safety Authority want people to die on the roads in order to remain in business?

Would it not be self-defeating for the RSA to achieve its stated goals? In such an event, it could not make a career out of “road safety” any more, could it? Let’s face it, such an organisation is effectively a business (albeit funded by the taxpayer) – even employing the language of business in its remit to:

“reduce death and injury resulting from road collisions” through “cooperation with many stakeholders working in the area of road safety, including the Gardai, education sector, health sector, local authorities, National Roads Authority, the media and of course the general public”.

Gombeen Man loves the “and of course the general public” bit.

As with any State-funded industry, the interest of the RSA is to build a whole self-perpetuating bureaucracy around itself, providing a purpose - and employment - for self-appointed “experts” in that field. So, what would these people do with themselves if road deaths ceased altogether?

In Britain, for instance, the whole road safety industry has taken on a momentum of its own, with thousands of quangos promoting and expanding the use of speed cameras – which do not reduce road deaths. (See Daily Telegraph article: Failure of speed cameras and Safespeed.)

It has been said before on this blog - and will probably be said again and again - that if Gay Byrne and the RSA are serious about reducing road deaths, they can do so at a single stroke. They can get our high-tax Government to abolish VRT (vehicle registration tax) on electronic stability control systems (ESC).

According to Thatcham, the British insurance industry research group, ESC systems (also known as ESP, DSC, VSC, PSM, depending on maker) can reduce road deaths by 40%. That’s right – FORTY PER CENT. So why does the Government insist on taxing this crucial safety feature, which can prevent drivers losing control of their cars in adverse road situations?

Because the tax is applied to ESC, it makes it more than twice as expensive to install on some cars. As a result, many manufacturers do not fit it as standard on vehicles sold here, but leave it as an option (to keep base prices down in a market where some cars are over already 40% more expensive than in other EU states, due to VRT).

On a Nissan Qashqai, for instance, ESC costs an extra EUR 800 in Ireland, but it is fitted as standard in Germany. According to a salesman in a Nissan showroom contacted by Gombeen Man, only about 2% of people ordered ESC on Qashqai bought there.

Taxing ESC, is akin to taxing seatbelts. It is akin to taxing Airbags. So, this Government is actively killing people - and Gay Byrne and the RSA has nothing to say about it, preferring to bleat on about the failed technology of speed cameras.

Once again, we must wait for Brussels to rescue us from our own Government. The European Commission hopes to make ESC mandatory on all new cars by 2011. Until then, hundreds of Irish people will die needlessly on our roads.

The Irish Government - helped by the silence of the RSA - is responsible for this carnage.


See also: Gay Byrne calls for speed cameras - again


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