Barrier system - Pilot project saving lives on our roads

WHILE drink driving, speeding and unqualified drivers are key factors behind the carnage on our roads, the quality of road design can also be major cause of fatal accidents.

This is borne out by the dramatic success of a new barrier system for overtaking used in a pilot project on one of the country’s deadliest blackspots.

Results of the 2+1 experiment, which effectively divides a nine-kilometre stretch of the Cork-Mallow road into alternative overtaking sections, have been so positive that the scheme is changing the way roads carrying heavy traffic are designed. In stark contrast with 15 fatalities there over the previous four years, there have been no overtaking accidents, no fatalities and no head-on collisions since the introduction of a barrier system in April 2005.

A similar scheme has now opened at Piltown, a blackspot near Carrick-on-Suir, where seven people died in four years. Other projects are going ahead at Monaghan, Leitrim, Donegal, Tuam and Adare.

Often the target of criticism, the NRA deserves to be applauded for this life-saving and cost-effective initiative.