The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has allocated a “similar spend” for cycling safety promotion this year as for 2016 despite a sharp rise in deaths among cyclists in the first six months of 2017.
The RSA defended spending less than 5% of its annual advertising and safety promotion budget for 2016 on cycling safety on the basis that spending was made “in proportion to the number of casualties i.e. accounting for 5% of [road] fatalities”.
The RSA spent €4,355,541 on road safety promotion and advertising last year but only €205,799 or 4.7% was targeted at cycling safety, according to figures released under Freedom of Information. In addition, €76,641 was spent on cycle training.
The RSA said its spending on cycling safety promotion was “significant” and included a radio advert on the importance of drivers leaving a 1 to 1.5 metre gap when overtaking cyclists. It aired in March and July and will be broadcast again this week.
“Additional measures are also being developed to target cycling safety in response to the increase in cyclist deaths in 2017,” the RSA said. Colm Ryder, chairman of the Irish Cycling Advocacy Network, said the allocation of 4.7% of the RSA’s promotional budget was “demonstrably inadequate and needs to be increased to ensure that this year’s tragic increase in cycling traffic accident deaths is a once-off”.
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Ryder said that the RSA’s promotional work should place a “much stronger emphasis on the reality of the difference between a large, approximately two-tonne vehicle and the vulnerable cyclist or pedestrian on the road”.
He added: “Motorised vehicles are all potential killing machines, and drivers need to be made fully aware of this fact.”
He called on the RSA to introduce more specific cyclist-related elements into driver licensing to improve awareness of cyclists. “We recommend that all drivers be obliged to experience the reality of cycling on Irish roads at some stage during the driver training process,” he said.
Ten cyclists died on Irish roads in the first six months of 2017, double the number in the same period of 2016. In total, there were 77 fatalities on Irish roads in the first six months of the year, 10 fewer than in the same period of 2016. A total of 186 people died on Irish roads in 2017, of which 10 were cyclists.
Cycling is enjoying a surge in popularity in Ireland. The 2016 census found that the number of people cycling to work was up 43% in five years. The number of people commuting by bike in Dublin city grew by 11% in 2016, according to the city council’s annual canal cordon count.