No Kildare road accident data available to council
Photo is for illustrative purposes only
Frustration has been expressed locally at the lack of road traffic accident data available to local authorities.
At the most recent meeting of Kildare County Council, cllr Bill Clear motioned “that the council writes to the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and An Garda Síochána requesting that detailed, timely, and location-specific road traffic accident data for County Kildare be made available to the Roads, Transportation and Road Safety Sections of Kildare County Council.” Cllr Clear was seeking this to help the council identify dangerous locations, prioritise places where safety works are most needed, develop speed-management and traffic-calming measures, support active travel and safer routes to school, and to strengthen decision making based on evidence.
The council’s report issued in response to cllr Clear’s motion by director of services for transport, mobility and open spaces Siobhan Scullly noted that the council already prepares detailed collision reports with the Gardaí after every crash.
The report further detailed that the RSA currently supplies collision data to the Department of Transport, which issues an annual roads safety analysis report for each county.
The government is currently preparing legislation to allow the RSA to share road collision data with local authorities, with it being expected that the legislation will be in place later this year.
County and city councils have been making road safety decisions without data on collisions and injuries since the RSA stopped providing such figures in 2018. The RSA has come under fire over the matter.
Speaking at the recent council meeting, cllr Clear criticised the RSA for their excuse when they stopped providing the data, which was that the provision of such data would be a GDPR breach.
