Mother of crash victim warns students they are vulnerable

THE mother of a young man who died in a car crash has warned teenagers they are not invincible.

Rose McCarthy, whose 22-year-old son Alan died after a crash near Blarney, Co Cork in 2005, spoke out yesterday at a hard-hitting road safety event in Cork.

She urged about 1,500 transition year students from schools across Cork City and county, who attended two AXA Roadsafe Roadshow events in the Rochestown Park Hotel, to consider the grief of families affected by road deaths in the hope it will affect their behaviour on the roads.

The Roadsafe event is built around a fictional car crash and features a live emergency exercise, followed by talks from a garda, ambulance personnel, a fire officer, and an emergency medicine consultant, who describe their role in the event of a crash.

Dr Jason van der Velde, a registrar in emergency medicine, regularly responds to road crash sites.

He showed the students graphic images of injuries, including a compound fracture where the thigh bone of a motorbike accident victim punctured his flesh, and a young female who lost her nose and suffered several other devastating facial injuries.

The show culminates in a presentation by accident victim Alan Quinn, who suffered a brain injury and is now confined to a wheelchair.

“I was late for work so I was speeding with no seat belt on,” he said.

“I had been out late drinking the night before and I was very tired.

“It was a cold wet windy morning; I turned the corner and drove straight into a pillar.”

Sergeant Jim Delea, from the Cork City Traffic Corps defended the shock tactics.

“While the images shown and the stories told may be graphic, it is vital that the message hits home that people behind the wheel can cause untold damage,” he said.

Billy O’Brien, AXA’s branch manager in Cork, said gardaí and schools have embraced the approach.

“We hope that young people will learn from this event, think twice about the seriousness of safety when driving and realise the consequences of taking risks on the road,” he said.

As of yesterday morning, 168 people had died on Irish roads this year — 34 fewer than for the corresponding period last year.

The number of collisions has also reduced from 179 by this time last year to 156 as of yesterday.