This annual survey shows that speeding, carelessness on the roads, and drinking and driving are still considered the three main factors in causing injuries or deaths on Northern Ireland’s roads - cited by 78%, 61% and 59% of respondents respectively.?The survey also gathered information on the level of awareness and effectiveness of DOE road safety advertising campaigns. Individuals' views were also sought on a number of road safety topics which included mobile phones, drink driving, school buses, pedestrians and fatigue. This report reveals that the proportion of drivers who would drive the morning after consuming a considerable amount of alcohol the night before, has fallen over the year from 30% to less than a quarter (23%). The annual report also shows that the majority of people (69%) oppose drivers taking one drink and driving. However, after one drink around one fifth (22%) of drivers would still get behind the wheel. Both of these findings are similar to the previous year's report. There continues to be overwhelming support for imposing the current set of drink drive penalties on those found exceeding newly proposed limits in Northern Ireland. For learner and restricted drivers exceeding the new lower limit of 20mg/100ml, 82% of respondents supported imposing the current set of penalties. Although the same lower limit is proposed for professional drivers, this attracted a higher level of support for using existing penalties (88%). For all other drivers, a new lower limit of 50mg/100mls is proposed and just less than nine out of every 10 respondents (89%) support the use of existing penalties for drivers caught exceeding this. Alongside this, the vast majority of respondents considered drink driving (88%) and drug driving (84%) to be offences where police should have the power to seize a vehicle. (Author/publisher)
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