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HEALTH&HABITAT

October/November 2012 www.esb.ie/em

STAY SAFE AND KNOW WHAT TO DO in the event of a car accident

PRIVATE DRIVERS’ HANDBOOK DEALING WITH COLLISIONS

GRAINNE COOGAN

SAFE DRIVING

Whether it’s a bump or a serious road traffic collision, incidents occur every day. In the hope that you’ll never need this information, here are some pointers on what to do should it happen to you.

IN THE EVENT OF A COLLISION:

• Put on a high visibility vest or jacket.

• Call Emergency Services if required.

• Notify the Gardaí of any collision involving a third party or third party property damage while on the scene. Where there are personal injuries involved, no matter how minor, the Gardaí must be called to the scene of the collision.

• Do not admit liability in the event of an incident involving a third party.

• The Private Drivers’ handbook contains a Bump Card at the back of the book. Complete the Bump Card at the scene.

• If you are involved in an incident/collision, you must stop your vehicle and remain at the scene for a reasonable time.

• If you are asked by a Garda, you must provide all relevant details. If there is no Garda at the scene, you must give this information to persons involved in the crash or provide it at the nearest Garda station.

• If you or another person are injured and there is no Garda at the scene, the collision must be reported to the nearest Garda station.

• Property damage must be reported to the Gardaí or the person in charge of the property.

• You are advised to keep a disposable camera with builtin flash in your vehicle and, if possible, take photographs of the scene and any damage done.

• Take care when moving damaged or broken-down vehicles and make every effort to warn oncoming traffic of the incident. Use your hazard lights.

• If you need to ask for another road user’s help to warn traffic, do so right away.

• Place the advance-warning triangle on the road far enough from the scene of the incident to give sufficient warning to approaching traffic.

• If the collision occurs near a bend in the road, make sure you give warning to traffic on both sides of the bend.

• Leaking fuel from a crashed vehicle is dangerous, so be careful approaching any vehicle after an incident.

Private Drivers’ Handbook and Road Safety Awareness DVD

COLLISION REPORTING

If you have a collision while driving for work:

• Call Emergency Services if required.

• Report the incident to your line manager/supervisor immediately by phone.

• Complete the Bump Card (at the back of the Private Drivers’ Handbook) at the scene. This will assist you in gathering essential information that may be required at a later stage.

• Send a copy to the Safe Driving Bureau to assist with statistics and learning.

All serious collisions (with actual, or potential for, injury or significant damage) must be reported to your senior manager within 24 hours.

For more information, contact Grainne Coogan at 01 4631721, or email safedriving@esb.ie

Electricity Abroad

RUSH TO THE RISING SUN

THREE MONTHS AGO, Japan launched a series of financial subsidies for renewable power suppliers – targeting everyone from large industrial customers to homeowners. The move has been met by as much as €2billion in private investment, with many seeking to profit from the wave of anti-nuclear sentiment following the Fukushima disaster last year.

The Japanese government estimates a nationwide spending rush of some €500billion by 2030, as the nation struggles to ease its dependence on nuclear generation.

Nuclear plants provided around 30 per cent of Japan’s electricity before Fukushima. Despite concerns that an energy replacement of that magnitude cannot be achieved without crippling the economy, public outcry suggests that the government will be compelled to implement an energy policy in which nuclear plays no part.

New laws require large utilities like Tokyo Electric Power to buy electricity from renewable providers at premium prices for the next two decades. Instead of appealing only to industry, the premium pricess are encouraging homeowners to install solar panels on their homes and to sell back electricity into the grid. So far, more than 30,000 households have signed up to the plan.

In addition, many companies outside the energy industry have been encouraged to move into renewables. Mobile phone firm Softbank plans to create 10 solar farms, with a combined capacity of 182MW, and a 48MW wind farm by 2015. Two of its solar farms have already been brought online this summer.

Power companies that pay the higher tariffs to renewable suppliers pass part of that cost on to consumers under a feed-in tariff system, which sees consumers paying an extra 0.22yen (equivalent to 0.2c in euro) per kWh to cover the renewable subsidies.

GERMANY TAKES GOLD IN SOLAR

ACCORDING TO EUROSTAT’S latest figures, only 0.6 per cent of all electricity generated in Europe comes from solar power. However, these figures do not take account of more recent developments – including the installation of a further 22GW of solar generation in the last year – more than double the next runner-up, wind.

Today, solar is estimated to provide two per cent of all electricity supplied in Europe.

Europe contains some 75 per cent of the world’s solar panels, exceeding the world’s number two, Japan, by a factor of ten. Of these, Germany possesses almost half the solar panels on the continent.

Italy, Belgium and the Czech Republic are also leading the way in solar power, while Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe remain at the back of the pack.

MAINE IS FIRST ON THE SEA

AN AMERICAN COMPANY in Maine has become the first to get a commercial tidal project connected to the national grid.

Ocean Renewable Power Company’s 180kW turbine in eastern Maine’s Cobscook Bay began feeding electricity into the US grid in September.

Project development vice-president John Ferland, announced, “We’re up and running and working through these early stages of a new project being operational for the first time.”

It’s a small step, but it is being watched closely by officials in both Maine and Nova Scotia, who are hoping to collaborate on a US-Canadian a tidal energy enterprise in the Bay of Fundy.

SPORTSCO NOMINATED FOR NATIONAL QUALITY AWARD

SPORTSCO has been nominated for a National Quality Award for the third year in a row. The nomination follows an EIQA audit earlier this year that resulted in the leisure centre achieving Level 2 in the Q Mark for Quality Management Systems. SPORTSCO has also received the White Flag from ILAM, which is a comprehensive quality award for gyms, swimming pools and leisure amenities in Ireland.

Cooking up a storm

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