Road safety is the latest victim of the credit crunch, according to an Irish RSO.
Mayo County Council’s Noel Gibbons says that with people cutting costs drivers can mistakenly assume that servicing a car is an unnecessary additional cost.
Conor Faughnan, public affairs manager, AA Ireland, said: “Irish people tend to treat their car the way they treat the dentist – they only go when they have a toothache or when something goes wrong.”
Provisional figures for 2008 released by Safer Roads for Cumbria reveal that the county had the lowest road fatality figure for many years with serious injury casualties also recording a reduction.
Last year there were 30 fatalities on Cumbria’s roads compared to 45 fatalities in 2007 and 59 in 2006. 2008 also saw 238 serious injury casualties compared with 274 the previous year. Slight injuries came in at 1,792 compared to 2,099 for 2007.
Alan Clark, cabinet member with responsibility for road safety, said: “To realise a 35% drop over the previous year’s fatal figures is a major success and demonstrates what can be achieved.”
The Government is considering increasing the maximum length of lorry trailers in a bid to reduce the number of lorries on the roads.
Transport officials said the new larger lorries, which would be two metres longer than the current maximum length of 16.5m, would be a ‘modest’ increase, but could produce ‘worthwhile benefits’.
Transport minister Jim Fitzpatrick said the Government will carry out a study to see if there would be clear benefits in changing the length of lorry trailers.
Work on giving footpaths and cycle links in Watermead Country Park near Leicester a major facelift has begun.
The improvements are part of the £1.4 million Sustrans Connect2 project which won a share of £50 million Big Lottery Fund grant in December 2007.
Over the next five years, significant work will be carried out on paths and trails in and around the park. This will improve links into the park including crossings at busy roads as well as bridges which will be transformed to make them accessible to all.
