Road deaths on the rise with pedestrian fatalities a big problem in Cork, says RSA

Six deaths last weekend exacerbated a recent upward trajectory of fatalities on Irish roads. The number of people dying in traffic collisions has increased from the low of 136 in 2021 to last year’s 155.

Already this year, as RSA chairwoman Liz O’Donnell said this week, Ireland is going in “the wrong direction in terms of fatal crashes”, with 98 deaths to date, an increase of 15 over the equivalent period last year.

“We’re particularly concerned about pedestrian deaths ... 22 pedestrians have died on the road this year,” she told RTÉ Radio. “That’s really dreadful ... It was 15 pedestrians [for the equivalent period] in 2022, so that’s an increase in pedestrian deaths, and 129 people have been seriously injured as pedestrians this year.”

Last year Cork saw the highest number of road fatalities at 14. Already this year 10 people have been killed on the county’s roads, of which four were pedestrians – two in Charleville, one in Midleton and one in Union Hall.

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Pat Galvin (82) from Newtownshandrum and Margaret Lyons (72) from Charleville died in separate incidents earlier this year when they were struck by slow-moving HGVs while crossing Main Street in Charleville.

In the past 20 years, three other people – Eddie Goggin (83) from Charleville, Kathleen O’Sullivan (75) from Milford and John Ryan (94) from Effin, Co Limerick – have all been killed while crossing Main Street.

Local Fianna Fáil councillor Ian Doyle has raised the issue of pedestrian safety in Charleville at Cork County Council and called for the expedition of plans to construct a relief road to the east of the town – separate from the proposed M20 Cork-Limerick motorway, which is to be built to the west.

[ Charleville seeks urgent safety upgrades after string of pedestrian deaths on main street ]

Cllr Doyle pointed to figures from Transport Infrastructure Ireland showing that there were more than 15,000 vehicles a day passing through Charleville town centre, some 1,275 of them HGVs.

“Speed isn’t a factor in any of these deaths – in fact it’s standstill traffic. But the drivers of the HGVs are so high up, there’s a blind spot right in front of their cabs. I travelled through the town in one HGV recently and the driver is completely blind to what’s beneath him,” he said.

“Unfortunately, when the traffic is stopped, people – rather than going to one of the pedestrian crossings – will decide to cross through the traffic and the HGV drivers don’t realise that there is someone in front of them and they pull off, with tragic consequences.”

[ Driving change: Can Ireland ever achieve its vision of zero road deaths? ]

The RSA has noted that older people are over-represented in pedestrian deaths. Between 2016 and 2022, 31 per cent of pedestrians killed across Ireland were aged 65 or over, even though only 15 per cent of the population were in that age group.

In the wake of the latest deaths, Cork County Council announced it had held talks with Transport Infrastructure Ireland’s Regional Road Safety section to examine what might be done to address the problems in Charleville.

According to the council, the immediate priority is the delivery of existing proposals for improved pedestrian safety on Main Street, which will require some alterations, including new speed ramps and improved signage.

Cllr Doyle welcomed the initiative as a short-term solution but insisted work must progress on the Charleville Relief Road to allow HGV traffic to bypass the town. He said the road, for which a route had already been identified, had been in the Cork county development plan for years.

“It’s the only way of getting the HGVs out of town,” he said. “It’s very bad between 8am and 10am in the morning and 4pm and 6pm in the evening, when they are back to back.”

We have had five fatalities in Charleville since I became coroner and really, they’re all basically carbon copies of each other

—  Dr Michael Kennedy, North Cork Coroner

Macroom in north Cork has seen the number of HGVs going through the town reduce by more 1,000 a day to about 700 since the opening of a €280 million bypass last December, according to TII.

Mary Buckley from Kilnmartyra, who was in her 60s, was struck by a truck in Macroom in 2008. And on the day the bypass opened, Patricia Daly (67) from Enniskeane was killed by a truck while crossing Main Street.

For North Cork Coroner Dr Michael Kennedy, the solution to the issue of pedestrian safety in Charleville is simple: reduce the risk to older and more vulnerable people by removing HGVs from the centre of the town, which, like Macroom, is a busy shopping centre for a large hinterland.

“We have had five fatalities in Charleville since I became coroner and really, they’re all basically carbon copies of each other. Without compromising the current cases, they’re all elderly people, walking out in front of HGVs who don’t see them, so the circumstances in each case are the same,” he said.

“We can give advice about traffic lights and mirrors on trucks and all that kind of thing, but these are only tweaking the risks. What you need to do is remove the hazard from the town, and that means taking the HGVs out of the town – otherwise, I think you’re really only clutching at straws.”