Cost of road accidents in 2005: €1.4bn

THE human tragedy of road deaths in Ireland is already well known — but now the Road Safety Authority (RSA) has placed a figure on the annual cost of road accidents for the first time.

The RSA has estimated that the economic cost of almost 28,000 traffic accidents reported to gardaí during 2005 was €1.44 billion.

New RSA figures on road collisions in 2005 show that 396 people were killed in 360 fatal collisions during the year while another 9,318 people were injured.