Olivia Kelleher
The chair of the Road Safety Authority (RSA), Liz O’Donnell, has expressed concern about the rising trend in road fatalities with the weekends showing up as a particularly dangerous time to be on the road.In an interview on Newstalk Breakfast, Ms O’Donnell said that it is shocking that in the region of half of our fatalities on the roads occur at the weekend.“We’re really concerned about the rising trend this year. The last few years we’ve had the lowest and safest record for road safety in Ireland, and we have made great strides in bringing down road fatalities over the last ten years."So we’re concerned this year there’s already 77 deaths and that’s way up on last year in the same period.”The majority of people who died on the road so far this year were travelling by car. However, Ms O’Donnell said that the RSA was worried about the fact that a disproportionately large minority of the fatalities were motorcyclists.“We’re particularly worried about motorcyclists - 17 this year, 21 last year.“That’s a very high rate of death by people using motorbikes and we’re calling for motorists in particular to slow down and be mindful of vulnerable road users.“Thankfully, pedal cycle fatalities are down and I think that’s due to the fact that we have made moves in terms of infrastructure to make cycling more safe for people and for children in particular.”Ms O’Donnell has called on the public to be cognisant of the basic rules of the road - adhere to the speed limit at all times and never go behind the wheel under the influence of drugs or alcohol.“It’s back to the basics.The things we thought we had dealt with and people had absorbed as the way to behave on the roads, we have to completely repeat the messaging and get it absorbed by the public again."Drinking driving is absolutely criminal behaviour and if you’re speeding and drunk you are out of control on the road. And the detections for drink driving, unfortunately, are up by a quarter already this year.”
