Irish road deaths rise during European day of action

Irish road fatalities actually increased during last month’s ‘European day without a road death’, according to the results from the initiative.

With 70 people dying every day on European roads and a further 370 seriously injured, the European Traffic Police Network declared September 21 ‘European day without a road death’, or Project Edward for short.

It aimed for 24 hours free from road deaths by urging motorists to sign a pledge promising to be a safer driver.

Some 43 road deaths were recorded by the network across the 31 countries on the day — a reduction of almost 39% from 2015.

However, Ireland is one of three countries to record an increase in fatalities during the 24-hour period.

On September 21, Ciara Baird, 19, and Maria Wallace, 38 were killed in a single-car collision in Camish, Co Donegal. That compared to zero deaths when the initiative was held in 2015.

Italy and Poland also recorded higher levels of fatalities compared to 2015.

Italy recorded eight deaths in 2016, compared to six in 2015 and Poland recorded nine road deaths compared to six in 2015, the results from the network show.

The results also show 19 countries recorded zero road deaths during Project Edward. Eight of these saw at least one death on the same day in 2015, the network said.

The Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, and Spain recorded a reduced number of fatalities on the day, the network said.

“It is important that what we take from this is that when everyone focuses on safer road behaviour, lives are saved,” said Road Safety Authority chief executive Moyagh Murdock.

“I would urge everyone to continue to practice this safer behaviour every day in order to create safer roads for ourselves and our children,” she said.

Speaking about the project, European Commissioner Violeta Bulc said: “This year, we recorded a significant improvement compared with 2015, which shows when all stakeholders come together we really make an impact and save lives. We are on the right path to make zero fatalities a reality.”

European Traffic Police Network president Paolo Cestra said: “When we launched Project Edward, we accepted it would be incredibly difficult to achieve a day without road death across Europe. We thank everyone who signed the pledge, who shared our information and who made one or two small differences in the way they use the road.

“Any small individual action counts in helping to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads of Europe.”

There have been 148 deaths on Irish roads so far this year — an increase of 25 fatalities from the same period last year, according to figures available from the gardaí.

There have been eight fatalities to date in October.