The highest number of traffic deaths in more than a decade occurred in 2025, according to an analysis to be published by the Road Safety Authority on Thursday.
Vulnerable road users – who include pedestrians, motorcyclists, pillion passengers, cyclists and e-scooter users – accounted for about 49 per cent of the total of 190 deaths in 2025, up from 39 per cent in 2024.
The overall total is the highest since 2014.
As of New Year’s Eve, 93 of the fatalities were classified as vulnerable, according to provisional Garda figures.
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Pedestrians who died between January 1st and December 31st were 45; motorcyclists accounted for another 30 deaths; cyclists accounted for a further 14; e-scooters accounted for three; and pillion passengers (or “other”) accounted for one.
The figures for vulnerable road users outnumber the 76 drivers who died during the period. Some 21 passengers were also killed this year, according to the statistics.
Deaths among vulnerable road users had been in decline as part of a general reduction in road fatalities between 2016 and 2019. But in the post-Covid years the trend has sharply reversed. In 2023, pedestrian deaths, in particular, rose from 27 in 2022 to 44.
Then minister of state with responsibility for road safety Jack Chambers described 2023, when there were 184 road deaths, as “a horrendous and devastating year”.
Road Safety advocacy group Promoting Awareness Responsibility and Care (Parc) said it was “very disappointed” by the 2025 out-turn.
Parc founder Susan Gray called for clarity on last week’s announcement of an expansion to the “mobile safety camera system”.
The Garda has announced an additional 390 “new safety camera zones” to become operational from January 1st, 2026, bringing the number of such zones countrywide to 1,901.
These are identified high-risk locations and can include school safety zones and areas where road works are taking place.
Ms Gray said publicity around the expansion of the system – understood to be the GoSafe speed detection vans – was silent on the number of additional cameras, if any, which would be deployed.
She said creating additional zones could potentially reduce the number of hours of coverage on existing zones, if significant numbers of new cameras or monitoring hours were not secured.
Asked for clarity on the issue, the Garda replied: “Once the new cameras become operational in 2026, more information will be provided ... No additional information is available at this time.”
Ms Gray was also critical of loopholes in the administration of driving bans. Through a series of Dáil questions tabled by TDs and interaction with the Department of Transport, she said it had been established that some drivers were not having their driving bans recorded, while some innocent drivers were finding out they had been improperly banned when they went to renew their driving licences.
“We intend to focus a lot on that in the coming year,” she said.
