Irish Examiner view: Time for a new approach to road safety 

RSA road death statistics for 2023 show the intersection of wider social forces

The pressure on road infrastructure is growing as the population grows: If the census tells us more and more people are living in the country, it follows that more and more of them are driving. Picture: Larry Cummins

The Road Safety Authority’s round-up of 2023 made for grim reading earlier this week, with their headline statistic particularly disappointing.

There were 184 people killed on the roads last year, a sharp rise on the 155 recorded in 2022. Last year saw the highest number of deaths on the road since 2016, and that leap of 20% in the number of fatalities since 2022 is a shocking statistic in and of itself.