No reduction in road deaths in Mayo but trends encouraging

No reduction in road deaths in Mayo but trends encouraging


Anton McNulty

THE number of fatalities on the roads around Mayo has remained at the same number over the last three years despite a 14 per cent reduction in the number of fatalities recorded nationally in 2009.
In Mayo, ten people died as a result of road traffic accidents which has remained the same figure in the county since 2007. Nationally, 2009 was the safest year on the roads since records began in 1959 with the total of 240 people losing their lives - a reduction of 39 on 2008.
However, while the number of road deaths did not increase, the number of serious injuries sustained from accidents reduced significantly from 28 to 19, while the number of non-serious injuries also decreased from 187 to 148 in 2009. There was also a significant reduction in the number of drinking driving arrests with garda figures showing the number of arrests have fallen from 458 in 2008 to 337. The number of material-damage accidents - where nobody was injured - also fell from 1,300 to 1,145 in 2009.
Noel Gibbons, Road Safety Officer with Mayo County Council told The Mayo News that while there were disappointed that the number of deaths has not reduced, he feels the other figures show that driver behaviour is changing.
“We are disappointed that there has not been a reduction in the number of deaths on the road when the national reduction has been huge. While one death is one too many, we had a huge drop in our first two years of our road safety plan which saw a reduction from 15 to ten. We feel the message is getting across to motorists and people have changed their behaviour and taking the messages on board in relation to the use of mobile phones and the wearing of seat belts. Our hope for the New Year will be that people will be aware of the dangers on the road and our target will be to reduce the number of road deaths in Mayo in 2010,” he said.
Noel explained that despite a reduction in their budget they will continue to run out the same number of campaigns and continue to work with the RSA and the Gardaí to reduce the number of accidents and deaths on the road.
Inspector Barry Foley of the Mayo Traffic Corps explained that they were doing all they can to help reduce the amount of deaths on the road and the only positive was that there were no deaths over the Christmas period. He said that while drink driving arrests were down the number of road sides tests increased and it remained a big problem in the county.
Inspector Foley added that the use of mobile phones by drivers as well as back seat drivers not wearing seat belts was still a worry and they will be enforcing those offences. He added that speed remains a problem in the county and called on motorists to slow down.
“Speeding is still an issue and last year I went on Mid-West radio warning the public that we had a robotic speed detector in place at collision prone zones in the county and asked them to slow down. These areas are areas identified as high risk for fatalities and despite the warning there was far too many people detected speeding. In June of this year, civilian speed detectors will be put in place and I urge people to slow down and help reduce the number of road fatalities in 2010,” he said.