Swedish experts to help tackle carnage on roads

SWEDISH safety experts are coming to Dublin this week to help tackle unprecedented carnage on Irish roads.

Early yesterday, the deaths of three young foreign nationals in a two-car smash near Carlow brought this year’s death toll to 150.

Of the total who died this year, 23 were non-nationals — mostly from Latvia and Poland — living in Ireland.

Road crashes claimed 14 lives in the first eight days of May. Eight of the victims died in the 24-hour period up to yesterday morning.

Sweden has one of the finest road safety records in Europe. Out of a population of nine million, Swedish road accidents last year claimed 440 lives — compared with 400 road deaths in Ireland. During 2005, Ireland was the only country of the main EU 15 member states not to record a decrease in road deaths.

The joint Swedish-Irish seminar taking place in Dublin on Thursday will hear how Sweden’s long-term aim is to eradicate all road traffic related fatalities or serious injuries.

A left-hand drive car was involved in yesterday’s crash outside Carlow town.

Gardaí believe the German-registered Ford Mondeo car was attempting to overtake a truck at the time.

The three men, aged between 22 and 27, were travelling to Co Kildare, where they were employed in the horse racing industry. Two of the dead came from the Ukraine, while the third victim was a Frenchman.

A front-seat passenger in the German car survived.

The driver of the other car, Paul Quinlan, from Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, sustained a broken hip.

Both men were taken to St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny. Their injuries are not life-threatening.

The accident happened on a straight stretch of the Carlow-Castledermot road. It was raining heavily at the time, gardaí reported.

People who may have noticed the German-registered car before the accident at 4.15am are asked to contact Carlow gardaí at 059-9136620.

In other accidents, two men died and another man was seriously injured in a road crash in Co Leitrim.

Damien Foley of Main Street, Manorhamilton, and Ger Mayock, Dromahair, Co Leitrim, died when their van crashed off the old Manorhamilton-Dromahair road in the early hours of Sunday morning.

In Dublin, 61-year-old Máire Buckley was killed when she was struck by a bus driver who rampaged through west Dublin.

Garry Sinnott, 19, from Duncormack, Co Wexford, died when his car crashed into a ditch at Wellington Bridge, Co Wexford.

Fine Gael road safety spokesman Shane McEntee said: “The carnage on the roads at the weekend shows that the road safety message is still not getting through to many sections of the community, and in particular the non-national community.”