On behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party, I want to support today’s amendment. We are very concerned about road safety in Northern Ireland, and we lend all the support that is humanly possible to improve road safety. Educating our young people on road safety is vital. So often it is the child who can say to the driver of the car: “Dad, you are driving too fast, slow down”.

We appreciate the work that the Fire and Rescue Service does in relation to accidents on our roads, highways and byways. We also thank the medical staff of our hospitals, who have to try and repair those broken bodies, and also the PSNI, which is always at our beck and call when an accident occurs on our roads.

We could do more to improve road safety. While we in the Assembly seem to be powerless at the moment, we call on the Department for Regional Development (DRD) and the DOE to be proactive in that role. When driving along many of our roads, many of the signs are barely visible because of bad weather conditions. They are either filthy, obliterated or you just cannot see them.

While in other areas you see signs on poles by the roadside, in parts of my county, Armagh, instructions are marked on the road in very loud and bold markings in a gold and red paint. I find that very attractive and more impressive than the many poles on roadsides, because you drive past them not noticing them because they are so numerous.

We must move further and ask DRD to look seriously at engaging in modern technology. We have experience of some of the valuable work that has been done in our universities — for example, Queen’s University has an excellent department for investigating and carrying out research — and with satellite navigation, and I hope that the Department will take the need to engage in modern technology on board.

Furthermore, car manufacturers should be instructed, or, in fact, ordered, to co-operate, and amend the manufacturing of the cars. For example, if someone is driving too fast, car manufacturers could have a signal appear on the dashboard to alert the driver to the fact that he or she is speeding. Or if there is a danger ahead, a mechanism fitted to the car could be triggered by a pole at the roadside as the car passes it, which would alert the driver to the accident ahead, or to the fact that the driver is over the speed limit.

We must be proactive and advance with the modern day and age. No doubt, there will be other Members who will speak today and give statistics on the figures relating to deaths, casualties and injuries. I and my party convey sympathy to all those who have suffered bereavement, especially over the last year and in the period just after Christmas, when the home is not the same due to an unfortunate road accident or an accident caused by a drunk driver.

Therefore bitterness and resentment are felt in many homes in Northern Ireland because of what can happen as a result of bad driving and poor road safety standards. The UUP wants to improve those standards, and Northern Ireland can lead the way by using modern technology to alert drivers and by introducing better road safety education to all schools.

The requirement to sit a written examination before taking the driving test was introduced about 15 years ago, but it now seems out of date. People still speed and do not take care on the roads. The Department for Regional Development also has a responsibility to straighten those bad corners at which many accidents happen. One accident or one death is one too many, and the Department should take emergency action to address such problem areas on the roads, because people must be protected. The UUP supports the amendment.