THE ROAD Safety Authority has been urged by a jury to consider again the issue of retro-fitting special downview mirrors to trucks after an inquest into the death of a pedestrian in Co Cork.
Mary Buckley (76), Bruach an Sullan, Ballymakeera, was killed when she was knocked down by a truck driver who could not see her crossing in front of his lorry.
The jury at the inquest heard that Ms Buckley was the fifth person to be killed in Co Cork in five years in such circumstances.
The inquest heard Ms Buckley went to cross Main Street in Macroom at about midday on July 9th, 2009, when traffic was stopped.
She passed in front of a lorry which moved off when the traffic lights turned green, without the driver realising Ms Buckley was in front of his lorry.
Truck driver Owen McGorman, from Farranree in Cork city, said he had stopped behind a car when the lights turned red. When the lights turned green he checked his side mirrors and saw it was clear and began to move forward, when he saw a woman on the pavement scream and raise her hands.
The woman pointed to beneath his truck, and then other people pointed there. Another lorry came against him on the other lane and he asked the driver to check what had happened and he was told a woman was under his truck.
“I felt no impact, and at no time did I see this lady cross the road,” said Mr McGorman. He said he had travelled approximately five feet from the time he was stopped to the time that he saw the woman scream and point to his truck.
Forensic crash investigator Garda Niamh Curtin said she examined the truck and could find no marks on the front to indicate a point of impact, suggesting that the lorry was moving very slowly.
She said there was no blind side or class six mirror providing the driver with a view of the area immediately in front of the cab, but there was no regulation requiring such mirrors on pre-2007 lorries, although they were required on all new trucks.
She had asked a garda of the same height as Ms Buckley to walk in front of the truck, and at no time was she able to see the garda. It was clear the driver could not have seen Ms Buckley.
Coroner for south Cork Frank O’Connell said the RSA had told him that it was decided at EU level not to retro-fit the mirrors on old trucks because the costs would outweigh the benefits.
He said Ms Buckley’s death was the fifth such fatality in Co Cork in five years, following a similar one in Macroom in April 2007, two in Charleville in November 2004 and September 2009, and one in Carrigaline in February 2004.
The jury returned a verdict of accidental death and called on the RSA to look at the Irish situation separately from the wider EU context.