Carnage on the roads - Slow down to save lives

Saturday, March 13, 2010

THERE is very little that can be said about road safety that has not been said a thousand times, but we must keep making the arguments because people keep dying in awful, sometimes avoidable, traffic accidents.

Today we report, through the eyes of author Jenny McCrudden, on the impact these terrible deaths and injuries have on individuals and families.

She tells of mothers trying to talk to children lost in comas. She tells of awful roadside scenes and the toll they have on those working in emergency services. Most especially she tries to get inside the mind of some of the young people who are just beginning to drive.

One of the great gifts of youth is that we all imagine ourselves immune to the dangers of life. Call it confidence, call it recklessness — either way it can kill. As McCrudden so graphically points out, no one is immune. It’s a lesson anyone who reads today’s reports will never forget. A lesson worth learning.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, March 13, 2010