Road Deaths and Civil Liberties

To begin with a sociological question, why is it only now that the carnage on Ireland’s roads is attracting such attention? The senseless slaughter has been ongoing for years, but was confined to the middle pages of the news media until a few months ago. Now, every accident, it seems, gets front-page billing. The shift in emphasis is fascinating and cannot really be explained by reference to statistics. Sure, more people have died already in 2006 than at the same stage in 2005, but the year-on-year increase is 20, hardly an exponential rise. What has risen exponentially – a factor rarely considered in the commentary on the subject – is the number of cars on Irish roads. In reality, it may be that, per miles travelled, proportionately less people are dying. Before I’m accused of hard-headedness, I too have lost personal friends to the carnage – and carnage it is – and it gladdens me that this is now recognised as a colossal social problem.

The issue is in the news because of angry outbursts from three Government Ministers over the past few days. The Minister for Transport and the Minister for the Environment have chimed in with the Minister for Justice, who probably summed up the cabinet’s frustration: “Blaming the State is not the way to get on with this. It’s Irish motorists who must get the message. It is dangerous, speedy, drunken and careless driving that is causing deaths, not the gardaí.” Their points are valid, but only to a certain extent. It is true to say that the authorities cannot prevent a maniac from veering across the white line whilst overtaking on a blind corner. But if the cabinet is utterly helpless, why have they introduced new penalty points offences and extremely strong drink-driving legislation? The reason is that law can shape social patterns and individual acts by deterring bad behaviour: punishing people for bad driving will dissuade them from driving badly; eventually, when a number of high-profile prosecutions have gone through and enough drivers at local level know of people who have been punished for reckless driving. No, Government cannot stop mindless acts of wanton aggression, but it can affect the thought processes of those who would commit such mindless acts. That is why they introduce legislation and fund the National Safety Council’s advertising campaigns. And it is not true to say – or even to imply – that there are no measures which can be taken to improve the situation, as we shall see.

What about the legislation which has been introduced? The new drink-driving law, the Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2006, was passed by the Oireachtas last month and will be operative shortly. It is a draconian piece of legislation: it allows Gardai to set up a checkpoint and randomly breath-test motorists. As a precedent, it is bad law: it inverts the old maxim that the citizen is innocent until proven guilty; with random testing, you are guilty until proven innocent. Traditionally, the authorities would have to demonstrate “reasonable suspicion” or “reasonable cause” before breath-testing you; this was not, as anyone who has ever been stopped at a Garda checkpoint knows, a particularly onerous requirement. I have never been breath-tested, but I have been stopped at checkpoints; if I had been drinking, I’m pretty sure that the Gardai would have been able to form a reasonable suspicion to justify breath-testing me.

Apart from being unnecessary, why is this bad law? It is bad law because it is a bad precedent: what’s to stop the Oireachtas from saying that “International terrorism is a scourge; therefore, the Gardai are entitled to conduct cavity searches at random in train stations”; or “Possession of drugs is a huge problem in modern society; therefore, the Gardai are entitled to go into schools and pick students at random for strip searches”? These are certainly more extreme examples, but there are other, more prosaic ones, which would similarly alter the relationship between the State and the citizen: all nightclub users could be required to turn out their pockets in the presence of a Garda, in the name of stamping out drug use, which would be a most distressing – though probably tolerable – imposition on the innocent. All in all, this law is intrusive, invasive and unnecessary. Reasonable suspicion is not too much to ask.

If the foregoing reads like anarchic libertarian gobbledegook to your more practical mind, consider a serious practical problem: the new law will probably make no difference whatsoever. Yesterday, the Irish Times revealed that drink-driving detections are up 23%. 7,863 people were arrested in the first six months of 2006. Impressive? It sounds like a majestic headline figure, but it works out at 305 motorists per week. Just over 40 per day. Which is about 1.5 per county in Ireland per day. Does anyone seriously believe that only 1.5 motorists drink and drive in every county in Ireland, every day of the week? The simple problem with drink driving is not that the Gardai do not have sufficient powers, but that they do not have enough manpower. They simply cannot detect the vast majority of drink drivers because they do not have enough men manning checkpoints. Unless there is a vast increase in the number of Gardai made available to man checkpoints, the new law will not make one whit of a difference. As with the introduction of the penalty points system, an initial period of compliance will be followed by a steady increase in offences, as motorists realise that their chances of getting away with drinking and driving are no greater than before.

Can other concrete measures be taken? One suggestion that has been mooted is a curfew for young drivers in the hours of darkness. A civil libertarian might have qualms about such a move, but should be able to overcome them: even a minimal state has a duty to protect its citizens, one aspect of which is to license dangerous behaviour. Driving, as an inherently dangerous pursuit, is regulated and no one suggests that it should not be; one is only allowed to drive with the state's permission and there is nothing wrong with the authorities imposing limitations on licenses. Such limitations could take the form of a curfew, or of not permitting young drivers to carry passengers. This is a real measure which could reduce road deaths without endangering civil liberties. Of course it would again require high levels of enforcement. Much less convenient than a headline-grabbing 'checkpoint' law.

Finally, beyond the parameters of this discussion are issues such as driver training. Better-trained drivers would be involved in fewer accidents. That's stating the obvious, but the licensing system is in such a state of chassis at the moment that it needs to be sorted out before any other legs (advanced tests, regular refresher exams) can be added.