Road fatalities rise for second year

Single vehicle crashes, drink driving and speeding have increased substantially.

The number of fatal crashes involving just one vehicle has risen for the second year in a row while the number of head-on collisions has fallen dramatically, according to the latest research published by the National Roads Authority (NRA) today.

Single-vehicle crashes, involving no other road user, are most strongly associated with drink driving and/or speeding.

The NRA's Road Collision Facts report on 2004, published today, also provides other evidence that these two factors are responsible for a large number of road fatalities, which, it says, are most likely to occur late at night, or early in the morning, and at weekends.

The study shows that 26 per cent of road fatalities happen between 9pm and 3am and a further 10 per cent of fatalities on the State's roads happen in the later hours of darkness between 3am and 6am.

The worst days of the week for fatalities in 2004 were Saturday and Sunday. The two days together accounted for 41 per cent of fatalities, while Mondays and Tuesdays were safest, together only accounting for 19 per cent of fatalities.

The report confirms that 374 people died in 334 collisions in 2004, an increase of 39 on 2003, a year considered to be positively influenced by the initial introduction of penalty points for speeding.

Garda figures for 2005 show that road deaths have continued to climb with more than 390 so far, and 10 days to go in December. It makes 2005 the worst year for fatal road accidents since 2001, when 411 died.

The most common type of fatal crash in 2004 was where there was only one vehicle involved. Thirty six per cent of all fatal collisions last year occurred like this, the report found, representing an increase of three percentage points over 2003. The 33 per cent figure in 2003 also represented a three-point percentage rise over the previous year.

More than 44 per cent of all single-vehicle collisions involved the car hitting a ditch, followed by a wall or gate at 19.5 per cent.

But perhaps the most dramatic turnaround is in head-on collisions. These type of crashes, the next most common, accounted for 22 per cent of fatal collisions, representing a drop of 10 per cent on 2003. Collisions where pedestrians died accounted for 20 per cent of all fatal crashes in 2004, compared to 21 per cent in 2003.

The contributory factor most commonly listed by gardai in accident reports is driver error. This was deemed to be the cause of 88 per cent of all collisions in 2004, followed by pedestrian error (8 per cent) and road factors (2 per cent).

In two-vehicle fatal crashes, the main contributory factor was "went to wrong side of road" (40 per cent), "other action" (26 per cent), "exceeding safe speed limit" (13 per cent), "drove through stop/yield" (12 per cent), "improper overtaking" (9 per cent), and "drove through traffic signal" (1 per cent).

Compared to 2003 there was a substantial increase in the number of car user fatalities, which rose from 172 to 208, and pedestrian fatalities, which rose from 64 in 2003 to 70 last year. The number of pedal cyclists killed remained unchanged at 11, while the number of motorcyclist fatalities decreased by five to 50. "Other" road users accounted for 35 deaths.

July was the worst month for road fatalities in 2004, while October saw the fewest.

Co Cavan saw the highest number of collisions per capita, Co Lonford had the highest number of collisions per 1,000 registered vehicles, while Co Louth experienced the highest number of collisions per 10 million vehicle-kilometeres of travel.

The estimated cost of all road collisions recorded, including insurance, medical and other costs, was €1.22 billion in 2004, compared to €1.104 billion in 2003 and €728 million in 2002.

The most vulnerable road users were those in the 25 - 34 age group. These accounted for 24.3 per cent of all deaths and injuries in 2004, while males were more than twice as likely to die or be injured on the roads.