THE FACT OF THE MATTER
BY PAUL HOPKINS
I’ve written about his before. In truth, I can not but write about it too much, too often. Carnage on our roads. Death by driving– bike, scooter, being just a pedestrian – driving towards 100 fatalities for the first six months of this year, a dozen up on last year.
It would be wrong to comment on the tragic cases. Some Garda investigations are ongoing and devastated families left behind are entitled to privacy and personal grief. Suffice to say, excess speed, isolated roads, phone usage and bad signage have played their roles.
In the last few days it has emerged that a service putting doctors at the scene of serious accidents is badly needed in Ireland to cut the rising number of road deaths. A report into survival rates has been compiled, amid a growing campaign for Ireland to introduce a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS).
Statistics within the report, entitled called ‘Republic of Ireland HEMS’, suggest that many lives lost could have been saved had Ireland adopted the same pre-hospital care as the rest of Europe. Ireland and Cyprus are the only two countries in Europe that do not have a physician-led helicopter emergency service.
I learnt to drive in the middle of a war zone. Robert Mugabe and his guerrillas were little short of rolling their tanks down the main street of Rhodesia’s Salisbury when I took to the Jacaranda-lined avenues of the capital — now Harare — in a battered old Austin Mini under the careful guidance of a woman I then loved. I even once had the audacity to drive on a learner’s licence in the traffic-strewn, bumper-to-bumper world that is New York City.
So, for 40 years and more I thought I owned the road and got away unscathed in that I never had an accident, nor points on my licence. Until I got caught some years back for speeding in a 60mph zone, just outside Banbridge, Co Down.
I was offered a ‘get-out’ clause – pay a fine and points on my licence or attend a four-hour course on road safety run by the AA and the PSNI. I opted for the latter. And I came away from that course, quite chastened and have been watching my speedometer like a hawk ever since. I don’t want to ever have to live with the consequences. Most of us only ever think of the dead in such scenarios but what of the horrifically maimed, the families left behind? A life snuffed out before its full potential is ever realised?
Consider these facts:
● 71 per cent of accidents last year were in urban areas, accounting for 34 per cent of fatalities. In rural areas these figures are only 25 per cent for collisions but a whopping 60 per cent for deaths — because of the speed involved and, as mentioned above, the time it can take for an ambulance to reach a rural spot. It’s called The Golden Hour — you have a greater chance of survival if the ambulance gets you to hospital in the first hour after an accident.
● Ever wonder why the 30kph came about? Statistically, a pedestrian hit at 30kph has a 97.5 per cent chance of survival; at 35kph that goes down to 5o per cent; and at 40kph there is only a 10 per cent chance of surviving.
In a combined effort to enhance road safety and address the alarming rise in road incidents, Kilkenny County Council has in place its Road Safety Plan 2022-2030. Aligned with the Government’s Road Safety Strategy, this strategic initiative is the result of extensive consultation and collaboration with the Road Safety Working Together Group — a diverse group of stakeholders dedicated to promoting a safer road environment.
Finally, to reiterate; for every 20 people hit by a car at 40kph, 18 of our fellow humans will potentially die. And, yet, two out of three of us speed on urban roads. Alcohol is responsible for one in eight accidents but speed for one in four.
One in two of drivers exceed the motorway speed — we know this because of those thin black strips placed across motorways. And 69 per cent of us exceed the limit on urban roads.
