The Co Tipperary road on which members of three generations of the same family lost their lives yesterday had been identified by the National Roads Authority as a cause for concern. Tim O'Brien reports
Four family members, from Glockamara near Mitchelstown in Co Cork, were killed yesterday morning when a truck veered across the road and collided with a van and three other trucks before hitting the family's Audi head-on.
The victims of the accident were named last night as Ms Mary Dalton (71); two of her daughters, Ms Kathleen Quish (47) and Ms Mary Downes (31); and her four-year-old grandson, Robert Downes. Another child, aged six, was taken to Cork University Hospital in a critical condition. Three of the truck drivers were also brought to hospital.
Supt Mary Fitzgerald said: "We believe that the truck that collided with the car was on the wrong side of its road."
The accident happened on a straight, wide stretch of road about three miles south of Cahir, near the Kilcoran Lodge Hotel. The road takes Dublin- and Cork-bound traffic and acts as a bypass for the town. It is due to be bypassed itself as part of the NRA's plans for a motorway between Dublin and Cork.
It was widened and improved in the mid-1990s and is now a 4.5 metre wide, flat, and largely straight stretch of road with good sightlines in each direction. There is a 2.5 metre hard shoulder on each side and the speed limit is 60 m.p.h.
However, the NRA has identified this type of road as a cause for concern precisely because of its "good" characteristics which can, in certain cases, encourage motorists to feel over-confident driving at speed and to believe the width will allow them to overtake with ease.
Yesterday a spokesman for the NRA confirmed such roads were "a cause of concern", adding that plans were in place to bypass this stretch with the new motorway segment between Mitchelstown and Cashel.
Construction is expected to begin in 2006.
Roads of the type on which the accident happened generally do not have a central crash barrier and drivers, when overtaking, can be surprised by an oncoming vehicle that is also overtaking.
Long, straight stretches of road can also lead to a lack of concentration by drivers, causing vehicles to "drift" into oncoming traffic, according to the NRA. When this happens, the resulting crashes are usually among the most severe.
The NRA prefers national roads to be dual carriageways with one lane a designated overtaking lane, coupled with a wide median to separate traffic travelling in opposite directions. The authority also recently adopted a policy of placing a heavy barrier between all opposing traffic flows on all dual carriageways - whether or not they are designated motorways.
Yesterday's accident would appear to echo similar incidents on single carriageway national roads, particularly one on the N11 in Co Wicklow in 1998, where a lorry crossed the white line and crashed into a mini-bus, killing three adults and two schoolchildren.