High volume of trucks travel crash road

DURING peak traffic hours, an estimated 450 trucks thunder along the main N8 route in south Tipperary where yesterday’s horror crash occurred.

The National Roads Authority has spent €20 million in the past three years maintaining and improving the relatively short Mitchelstown to Cahir stretch, which accommodates more than 11,000 vehicles every day.

But a local resident yesterday disputed a call by Fine Gael’s Tom Hayes for a proposed dual carriageway- part motorway scheme, currently at a preliminary stage of planning, to be brought forward.

Mr Hayes, who visited the crash scene, said he had received a ‘worrying’ number of complaints about the volume and speed of trucks on the route.

“This is not the time or place to apportion blame,” he said, “but this horrific accident underlines the need for an upgrading of this road or else the need to reduce the heavy volume of trucks on the N8. I strongly believe the inter-city rail transport network could facilitate much of the cargo being ferried along this route every day.”

However, German-born Carsten Boettger said he has counted more than 25 fatal accidents between Skeheenarinky and Cahir, the stretch on which the accident occurred. He said the dual carriageway/motorway plan was not the solution.

“My fear,” he said, “is people will use this tragedy to promote the proposed new route. I don’t believe any widening or major improvement would solve the problems. That would be ludicrous.

“We need to slow down the traffic on that stretch or provide, at different points, an overtaking lane.

“The road itself is not at fault,” said Mr Boettger, a farmer who operates the Kilcoran Farm Hostel. “The road is capable of handling the current volume of traffic but it requires some redesigning to facilitate a three-way lane system,” he said.

Statistics compiled by the National Roads Authority estimate 86% of road fatalities are caused by driver error. National Safety Council figures, meanwhile, indicate that over a five-year period, one-in-five fatal accidents involved trucks.

The council’s communications officer Brian Farrell said yesterday the road death trends of recent years confirmed a significant drop. “A total of 341 people died in road accidents last year,” he said, “it’s still a very worrying figure but progress is being made in terms of the annual death toll.”

He added: “It’s falling rapidly but road crashes continue to claim too many of our loved ones every year.”