Ceremony commemorates road victims

DOZENS of while balloons were released into the sky yesterday as families bereaved by traffic accidents gathered to remember their loved ones and appeal for greater effort to reduce the toll on the country’s roads.

The ceremony was organised by campaign group Public Against Road Carnage (PARC), in Buncrana, Co Donegal, to coincide with the United Nations’ Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims which was marked by events in many countries.

The group’s founder, Susan Gray, whose husband Stephen died after being struck by a car on St Stephen’s night in 2004, read prayers in the open air under pelting rain after a special remembrance Mass at St Mary’s Oratory in the town before releasing the balloons with the help of her son, Stephen Jnr, 13, daughter, Laura, 15, and crowds of local people.