Annual Report 2009(PDF) - Road Safety Authority

Attitudinal Surveys
The research department has commissioned attitudinal
research on Irish road users on the following issues:
• vehicle ownership
• driving licenses
• vehicle usage
• journey times
• speeding behaviours
• involvement in collisions
• car safety
• child restraint usage
• protective clothing
• helmet usage
• drink driving
• mobile phone usage
• drug driving and driving behavior.
The field work and analysis was completed in 2009 and the
research will be disseminated during the first quarter of
2010.
International Liaison
The RSA is committed to participation in European research
and to develop within the authority a road safety research
capability that is of the highest standard. The research
department represented the RSA at the annual meeting of
the Board of Forum of European Road Safety Research
Institutes (FERSI); the annual meeting of the OECD –
International Transport Forum; International Road Traffic
and Accident Database (IRTAD), the annual conference of the
European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO-SafetyNet) and the
annual PIN meeting of the European Transport Safety
Council (ETSC).
ETSC (European Transport
Safety Council) Annual
Lecture
The 11th ETSC lecture was held in
Dublin on 12th October 2009 as
part of Irish Road Safety Week and
was hosted by the RSA, a member
organisation of the ETSC.
The main speaker was Professor Denis Cusack, Director of the
Medical Bureau of Road Safety and Professor of Forensic
Medicine and Legal Medicine at University College Dublin.
The theme of Professor Cusack’s paper was “- Intoxicated
Driving – Justified optimism with the need for joined up
thinking and action across professions, agencies and States”.
The lecture was preceded by an opening address by the
Minister for Transport, Mr. Noel Dempsey T.D., Noel Brett
CEO, Road Safety Authority and Professor Richard Allsop,
Board Director of the ETSC, also made opening comments.
Professor Cusack stated that consumption of alcohol at any
level causes impairment. Professor Cusack stated that the
level of cases involving drugs and driving was increasing and
that the Medical Bureau was testing more samples and
finding more positive results for drugs every year. In 2008,
the MBRS tested 1,842 samples and found a confirmed
presence of drugs in 1,411 cases.
In response to Professor Cusack’s lecture, Stefan Siegrist,
Deputy Director and Head of Research and Training at the
Swiss Council for Accident Prevention detailed the changes
in Switzerland after the introduction of a 0.05g/dL level in
2005. Eva-Maria Erenli, project leader and legal expert at the
Austrian Road Safety Board gave a similar paper on the
situation in Austria after the reduction of the BAC level in
1975. In both instances, the results of the reduction have
had positive effects on collision rates and offending rates.
Over a hundred delegates attended the lecture.
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