Woman, 60, killed in three-car crash

A WOMAN in her 60s, who was killed in pile-up in Co Cork yesterday,became the 205th person to die on Irish roads so far this year.

Gardaí said compared to this time last year 14 more people had died on the country’s roads. Inspector Billy Duane, who is head of the Garda Regional Traffic Corps, said the latest tragedy meant that 19 people had now lost their lives in Cork so far this year, whereas for the comparable period in 2005 the total was just 12.

The woman, who is believed to have been living in the Bantry area, lost her life in a three-vehicle collision at 9.20am yesterday at Durrus Cross.

Her car was in collision with a camper van and a van and she was pronounced dead at the scene by a local doctor. Both of the occupants of the other vehicles escaped injury.

Garda technical experts sealed off the crash area,between Ballydehob Cross and Durrus Cross (on the N71), for a number of hours yesterday while they gathered evidence. Diversions were put in place until the road was reopened late yesterday afternoon.

A garda spokesman said they had already spoken to some witnesses, but appealed for anybody else with information to contact Bantry Garda Station at (027) 20860.

Inspector Duane said that assistant commissioner Ray McAndrew had ordered increased traffic corps operations, which will commence shortly, in an attempt to cut down on the number of serious accidents.

He said that the majority of people killed in the region so far this year were in the 20 to 25 year-old age group, and a number of them were single vehicle accidents which occurred between 11pm and 4am.

However, he added that multiple car collisions, of which there have been several, normally happened during peak times.

He revealed that last month a total of 209 people had been arrested in the Cork, Limerick and Kerry regions on suspicion of drink-driving, which was up by 6% on June 2005.

“Overall for the first six months of this year drink-driving arrests are up 22% in those regions compared to the same period last year,” the inspector added.