Speeding is the big killer on hazardous roadway

The road from the outskirts of Wexford town to New Ross is largely straight, wide and flat.

With long sightlines over a gently undulating landscape, there is little hint that this is part of the State's worst road for fatalities, the N25. But the numbers add up that way.

From the Wexford side of the N25 roundabout outside the city to the outskirts of the town of New Ross, 10 people died, in five fatal crashes, between 1996 and 2000.

This figure contributed significantly to the total of 39 people killed on the entire Cork to Rosslare N25 route during the period of the NRA study.

The N25 has now been revealed by the NRA to be the worst national road for fatalities from road accidents.

The New Ross to Wexford section has been improved, realigned, widened and flattened on a number of occasions since two separate accidents near New Bawn, about seven miles from New Ross, resulted in the loss of seven lives early in 1998.

However, as the parents of children attending Our Lady of Fatima National School at Barntown, a few miles from Wexford, have discovered, widening and improving single-carriageway roads sometimes does little to reduce speed, and indeed can have the opposite effect.

Barntown is another fatal accident location on the route and the school principal, Mr Pat Kavanagh, remembers a protest march for improved safety measures more then a decade ago.

The improvements, in the form of a new alignment - in effect, a mini bypass for the school - came through in 1997 courtesy of local TD Mr Brendan Howlin, who was environment minister at the time.

But the problem of speed did not go away. While the school was now in a comparatively quiet cul-de-sac off the new main road, parents and teachers discovered that a nearby flat, straight and wide stretch of road does little to slow down traffic.

Accidents continued to occur and, by Easter 2001, "gateway" traffic-calming measures were put in place, particularly aimed at slowing the high volume of trucks from Rosslare port.

Four of the five fatal accidents occurred at a junction of two national roads, the N25 and the N30: at the top of a hill east of Begerin; at a bend in the road at Carrigbyrne; and near the school in Barntown.

The fifth fatal accident was just off the N25, east of the roundabout linking the road to Wexford town.

Most of these accidents, the NRA pointed out, were the result of speeding.

Accidents on wide, flat, largely straight sections of roadway typically occur while drivers are overtaking on bends or turning at junctions, according to the NRA.

Last week, in heavy rain and poor visibility, most of the traffic on the road appeared to be exceeding the speed limits.

According to a local resident, Ms Winnie O'Keefe, the speed of traffic on the N25 makes it particularly difficult to access the road or to get across it.

"There are accidents at junctions there all the time," she said. "Even to get out on the main road is dangerous, traffic just flies on it.

"I was trying to get out one evening for about 10 minutes. Then a car came up behind me and after a while he came around me and swept out on to the road.

"And there is an awful lot of traffic going from Rosslare to Cork. A lot of people have been killed on it."

Ms Hilary O'Brien agreed that speeding was a problem on the road.

While the NRA continues to upgrade the road, the number of accidents does support the authority's contention that dual-carriageway roads and motorways are safer than wide, improved stretches of national road.

Unfortunately, the N25 is not one of the inter-urban routes designated for upgrading to motorway status under the National Development Plan.