'There is an onus on everyone' to improve road safety in Cork, council's director of roads states 

“THERE is an onus on everyone. There is no silver bullet,” said Padraig Barrett, director of roads with Cork County Council on the issue of road safety in Cork county.

As of Thursday, August 24, 114 people have lost their lives on Irish roads this year.

According to the Road Safety Authority (RSA), that number is up 16 when compared to the same period last year.

The 114 fatalities consist of 42 drivers, 27 pedestrians, 23 passengers, 15 motorcyclists, three cyclists, and two e-scooter users.

Three counties have accounted for 28% of the deaths. Eleven people lost their lives in Galway, a further 11 in Mayo and 10 died in Cork.

Mr Barrett revealed to The Echo that there were seven road fatalities up to the end of May this year on roads throughout Cork county, which he admits is a high number. “Up to the end of May there were seven road fatalities in Cork County. In 2022 we had 18 road fatalities overall in Cork County. In 2021, there were eight and in 2019 we had 14. We are on course for this year to be as bad as the worst of the previous ten years. In quarter two this year, we had six road fatalities. That is a high number,” he said.

“Everybody has a responsibility,” added Mr Barrett. “A lot of good initiatives have been introduced in the last decade or two. This year it has gone back again unfortunately both nationally and in Cork county. 

"In my role with Cork County Council, road safety is the one that I worry the most about. 

"It is the one we need to address. 

"We need funding for roads to improve their quality and to improve road safety. There are unfortunately places that we could do with more funding.” 

Despite the concerning number of RTCs this year in Cork and nationally, Mr Barrett said a lot of progress has been made on both national and Cork roads in recent decades. “We used to have a terrible record in Ireland back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. The stats were terrible. We have halved those. We have done well. We have undertaken a few major initiatives. The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has brought in vehicle testing. 

"For the most part we have very safe cars now on our roads," he added. "On top of that, policing has improved, and people now have a greater fear of being caught. The guards are analysing the statistics and they know what they need to check for. 

"We have done a lot of work on engineering and driver behaviour has improved a lot as well.” 

Mr Barrett said significant road improvements in county Cork will also help contribute to fewer road fatalities. “We do low-cost safety improvements every year. We get money from government. I would love to get an awful lot more. We target those areas where we know there are dangers or where there are accidents. We do improvements on those. Ballymaquirke Cross is opening to traffic in North Cork," he said. 

"This has been the scene of a number of fatal accidents and a number of serious injuries. We are putting a roundabout there which is opening very soon.

“We don’t get to all the areas," he added. "Over time, you would like to think we are targeting those. We recently opened the next phase of the Macroom Bypass and that removed traffic from the bad bends between Macroom and Ballyvourney. That was a very dangerous section of road. It won’t all be about new roads. It will also be about improvements in the existing roads."

Roads Policing Unit 

Sergeant Aodan O’Leary from the Roads Policing Unit in Bandon gave a breakdown of the Road Traffic Collision (RTC) figures in both the West Cork Garda Division and the North Cork Garda Division. 

“In the division of West Cork in 2022, there were eleven fatal road traffic collisions," he said. "Up to August 22, this year there have been two RTCs. The North Cork Garda Division, which would basically be anything north of Millstreet and would include Kanturk, Mallow, Midleton, Glanmire, Little Island and Youghal, had one fatal RTC last year. Unfortunately, this year, they have had six fatalities. Going back to 2019, we had two fatal RTCs in West Cork and North Cork had ten. In 2018, both West Cork and Cork North had four fatalities.

“Every fatal accident brings its own tragedy,” added Sergeant O’Leary. “We would be very conscious that every fatal accident is a tragic incident. If we ended up with four fatal accidents this year, we would be back to what the statisticians call a median norm. Our aim is always zero deaths. In 2022, we had six drivers killed, two motorcyclists killed, two pedestrians and one motor scooter driver killed. Four fatalities occurred in Bandon Garda District, three in the Clonakilty Garda District, one in the Bantry Garda District and three in the Macroom Garda District.

“Of those 11 accidents, there would have been a certain degree of driver error involved in all 11 accidents. 

"It was a sort of a freak year. Sometimes from year to year we can be lucky and have a very low number of fatalities, or we can be very unlucky. In the two fatal accidents this year, one was a pedestrian, and one was a driver,” he added.

Sergeant O’Leary said members of An Garda Síochaná have placed a big emphasis this year on policing national and county roads over the bank holiday weekends. “On the prevention side, what we have tried to do a lot this year is put a lot of extra resources into our bank holiday operations because of the volume of traffic. They are a time of real high visibility. They certainly had a good impact as we had no incidents of any note for any of our bank holidays for this year which would traditionally be always big. It also puts a lot of visibility on the road as well which is always beneficial. It is good to be seen.” 

The sergeant explained investigations of RTCs have really ramped up in recent years, which aims to prevent more accidents occurring. 

"The investigation would be done to a very high standard. They are dealt with as a fatality almost to the same standard as you would investigate a suspicious death," he said. "There would be a garda liaison officer appointed and a file to the DPP and the coroner’s court. After every fatal accident, the roads policing sergeant or inspector would analyse the road traffic collision and see if there if was anything in relation that the council might be able to do or traffic signage. 

"We try to prevent another one happening.

“With West Cork being a rural division, we are always conscious to be community driven,” added Sergeant O’Leary. “From a detection point of view, with roads policing we are effectively an enforcement unit. We don’t want to be heavy handed all the time. We want to detect with community in mind. Community is at our heart all the time. If there was an uninsured driver or a young unaccompanied driver or somebody disqualified from driving, we would obviously be ceding the car there and then. Road transport would be keeping an eye on the lorries and doing a lot of multi-agency stuff as well.” 

Drug Driving Detection

The sergeant revealed that drug driving detection has increased in recent years. “The lifesaver enforcement is our key prevention method on the roads. This deals with intoxicated driving, both alcohol and drugs," he explained. "Drugs has become a big detection for us in the last few years. We would have no tolerance to unaccompanied young drivers on a learner permit. We are probably arresting as many for drug driving as drink driving now," he added. 

"That has been a huge prevention for us. We are doing a lot of check points and a lot of operations."

Sergeant O’Leary said the gardaí are embarking on several initiatives to try and reduce the number of fatalities on Cork roads. “We are going into schools and doing road safety talks. We are also talking to people at check points and telling people what we are doing. We just want people to slow down and to be very careful with their driving behaviour. That really comes into using the seatbelts and not being on your phone or poking at a radio while driving."