Report Paul Murphy
It was entirely appropriate that a new road safety plan for Meath from 2025 to 2027 was coming before the county council in view of the tragic accidents on the roads of Meath and Louth in the last few weeks, a council official told a meeting of Meath County Council. Five young people died in an accident in Louth and two men died in a separate accident in Meath last month. The council heard of key points in the plan, what the council has done so far, the trends in road accidents, how the council views the accident history and how that would affect its investment and action plan.
Monitoring and evaluation processes are in progress on an ongoing basis. Council Road Safety Officer Audrey Norris said the plan would range across seven priority areas. The RSO went over details of various initiatives being undertaken by the council, including reaching out to schools to educate older students about the need for road safety.
Cllr Eugene Cassidy said the council’s Learn to Cycle Scheme in progress at Blackwater Park Navan was an excellent initiative. The average speed camera was also a great initiative and he said Gardai had claimed a 99% success rate for it.
Cllr Joe Fox said that driver behaviour and education were keys to bringing down road casualties. He said on a recent drive to Dublin Airport he encountered fog and noted that 40% of drivers had no lights on.
Social Democrat Cllr Ronan Moore said there were still too many heavy goods vehicles using rural roads for short cuts and so as to avoid tolls. He also said he wasn’t sure whether the date fed to the council by the Gardai in relation to the incidence of collisions was accurate. His sense was that Gardai weren’t willing or perhaps able to get out to smaller collisions where, thankfully no one was injured, but where there has been damage. He had come across an accident on the busy Navan to Athboy road and while no one was injured the passengers were still at the scene and he believed they were there for at least an hour. In most cases people swapped insurance details and moved on. But this meant that a more accurate picture of where collisions were occurring was not being given.
Independent Cllr Noel French, pictured above, said he was disappointed, after 11 years on the council, that the council was not having a bigger impact. The council had received reports like this before and saying the exact same thing. Ten years ago the casualties were seen or eight per annum and for the 10 years since the fatality rate remained at the same level. The serious injury category had risen from 34 to 55 per annum. He accepted we had more people on the road with the increase in population but those figures were remaining constantly steady. He said he noted that the report before the council said that support for speed limit was “modest” with 50% or more not in support. When speed limits were being supported by less than 50%, it meant that there was something wrong.
