Analysis:Ireland may have turned the corner on road safety but, as this weekend's carnage shows, it has come too late to save the lives of some young drivers, writes Paul Cullen
And so the appalling trail of death on our roads continues, followed, almost predictably by now, by copious handwringing and promises to improve safety standards.
Government and the various safety bodies, seeing a glass half-full, tell us of measures introduced, checks carried out, arrests made and the latest improvement in the body count among a particular category of road-user.
The annual number of road deaths has dropped massively over the last 30 years. The figure was running at 600-plus in the late 1970s, and in only one year in the 1980s and 1990s did it fall below 400 - usually it was well above 400. It has been under 400 every year since 2002 and it should be again this year - the total to date is 303.
Opposition politicians stress Ireland's inferior road safety record compared to other countries in western Europe.
The weekend's death toll has blown to pieces the Government's three-year road safety strategy, which aimed to bring the number of annual fatalities down to 300 by the end of this year.
The Road Safety Authority talks of having stopped the upward spiral but, in truth, this modest improvement has been achieved only by throwing considerable resources at the problem. In recent years, we've seen the introduction of penalty points and its extension, major public awareness campaigns including television advertising, the introduction of random breath-testing and the rollout of a Garda traffic corps.
Each new measure has succeeded in driving down the number of fatalities. After random alcohol-testing was introduced, the number of people killed in September fell sharply, from 31 and 34 in the two preceding years to 19 this year.
However, these positive signs have proved temporary. The biggest drop was achieved when penalty points were introduced to much fanfare in November 2002, but the increased levels of driver caution lasted only six months.
Over 250 people have lost their lives since then, because the improvements were so short-lived, according to one actuarial study.
Ireland recorded 9.3 road deaths per 100,000 population in 2004, well above the 5.6 recorded in the UK or 4.9 in The Netherlands. Our figures don't look so bad compared to overall EU averages, but only because so many countries in eastern and southern Europe have worse records.
The trend over time is also positive. Back in the 1970s, more than 700 people a year were dying on our roads. Between 1996 and 2005, the number of cars increased 41 per cent and the number of drivers 21 per cent, yet deaths fell 13 per cent. However, the same period saw big advances in car safety and growing affluence which allowed people buy newer, safer vehicles.
According to the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), political will is the missing ingredient in Ireland's woeful road safety performance. Ironically, the only time this will was provided - when the then minister for transport Séamus Brennan championed the penalty point scheme - a marked improvement in the figures was evident.
The problem is greater among certain categories of driver, and on certain types of road. A young male aged 17-24 is seven times more likely to be killed in a car crash than the general population. The poor state of rural roads is also a significant challenge, according to the ETSC, which has called for improvements to the road infrastructure.
Ultimately, driver behaviour is the cause of most crashes, and accounts for over three-quarters of road fatalities. Changing this, particularly among hot-headed young males, is proving as difficult a challenge as ever.