Roads death toll rising - Unhappy trend

THE public education campaign launched a few years ago, in conjuction with an increase in the enforcement of traffic regulations, led to a significant fall in road deaths. All of a sudden our roads were much safer for all road users.

Sadly, that positive trend has been reversed and fatal crash numbers are climbing again. Three years ago, in 2012, we recorded the lowest death toll ever on our roads when 162 people died, that rose to 190 in 2013 and continued to climb last year reaching 196.

This year 106 people have died on our roads already and the greatest number of those — 47 — were passengers in cars. Seven of those fatalities occurred over the weekend just past. In one accident three men died on Sunday evening after a crash on the A1 dual carriageway in Co Down.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy, possibly a life-changing one, for a family. As the victims of the weekend crashes are buried over the coming days we should all take a moment to reflect on how we use the roads and whether or not we could improve our driving and help reverse this unhappy trend.