Press Room

Macra na Feirme has released the results of a survey concerning rural transport, which was carried out on 200 members of the organisation over the summer months. Participants, ranging in age from 17 to 35 years and from rural backgrounds, were surveyed at a number of Macra events around the country between May and August this year. The gender breakdown was 62% male to 38% female. The survey covered areas such as modes of transport to place of work, access to public transport, random breath testing and speed checks.

Lack of public transport options Speaking on the findings of the survey, Catherine Buckley, national president of Macra na Feirme, said that there was an obvious need for enhanced public transport provision in rural areas. She pointed to the fact that 69% of the survey respondents drive to work each day, and said that with limited access to public transport in rural areas, this trend was 'undoubtedly set to continue'.

With 71% of respondents reporting 'limited' or no access to a bus service in their area, and 81% reporting 'limited' or no access to a train service, Ms Buckley said it was vital that the lack of public transport in rural areas was addressed as a matter of urgency by the new Government.
"For most young people living in rural areas, the only feasible transport option is by private car, whether for traveling to work or for just going about their day-to-day business. We are constantly hearing of the need to reduce traffic on our roads in order to cut down on emissions and combat traffic gridlock, yet the majority of rural dwellers do not have the luxury of opting for public transport. Quite simply, it is just not available to them," she said.

Referring to the high level of car usage in rural areas, with over 50% of survey respondents citing an annual mileage rate of over 30,000km, Ms Buckley said that this was, in part, caused by the fact that so many rural dwellers were forced to drive long distances to work. Ms Buckley pointed out that because of a lack of public transport, most rural people had no option but to drive their cars to work, with almost a third covering distances of over 30km to get to their workplace. She said that as well as looking at providing more public transport options in rural areas, the Government should also be encouraging employers to provide opportunities to employees to work from home.

"Giving people the opportunity to work from home would be an effective way of allowing local people in rural areas the chance to work in the areas where they are living, providing them with more time to become involved in community life rather than wasting hours commuting. Less commuters on our roads would also have an impact in terms of decreasing the carbon emissions which are having such a detrimental impact on the environment," she said.

Provision of 'nitelink' service in rural areas Ms Buckley also pointed out that a large number of road accidents occurring during night-time hours could possibly be prevented if a service such as a nitelink bus was available in rural as well as urban areas.

"Based on findings from the survey, with 31% of respondents saying they were regularly forced to 'stay over' somewhere after a night out rather than source a transport option on the night, I would certainly welcome the rolling-out of a nitelink type service in rural areas, and not just to facilitate customers of local pubs. For example, Macra na Feirme, as a national rural organisation for young people, offers a social scene which doesn't always involve the pub environment, but transport to and from these social events can often be a problem for young people living outside of towns. The most desired scenario would be that all rural areas could have some system in place to facilitate people who want to go out at night, enjoy themselves and know that there is some means of getting home safely," she said.

Random breath testing 90% of respondents said they either 'agreed' or 'strongly agreed' with the concept of random breath testing on Irish roads. 7% of respondents were opposed to random breath testing, while the remaining 3% neither agreed nor disagreed with random breath testing. However, 81% of drivers reported that they had never yet been breathalysed.

Speaking on this issue, Ms Buckley said that because alcohol intake still remained a contributing factor in a high number of road traffic accidents, it was vital that random breath testing became a normal and regular experience for road users.

"Despite the fact that the majority of Macra's members are in the high-risk category in terms of age profile when it comes to traffic accidents, over four-fifths of respondents to our survey said they had never been breathalysed. Random breath testing needs to become a more common occurrence if it is to have a real impact in cutting down the potential number of accidents on our roads," she said.

Speed Checks In relation to speed checks, the leader of the rural youth organisation said that the commonly-held view that Gardai seem to concentrate their efforts in easy-target zones had been borne out by responses from survey participants.

"The highest proportion of respondents (38%) said that the most common place to witness a speed check was in a 50km zone, while only 2% said they had commonly witnessed speed checks on rural country roads. This is worrying, as a large number of accidents which have speed or reckless driving as their cause, do also occur in rural areas," she said.

However, Ms Buckley said that one positive finding from the survey was that people were, in general, noticing a high level of Garda presence on roads around the country. 21% of respondents said they had noticed a Garda presence on the roads 'between three and six times' in the previous 12 months while 48% said they had witnessed a Garda presence on the roads 'more than six times' in the previous twelve months.

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