Two more deaths show need for ongoing road safety push

A man aged 70 died in a one-vehicle crash in Tempo, Co Fermanagh, on Sunday. Another man, also in his 70s, died after a collision between a car and a lorry.

The Tempo accident happened on a sharp corner that has had a number of accidents, the Ulster Unionist Party councillor Victor Maxwell has said. In a twist of fate, Mr Maxwell was due to attend a pre-planned meeting with Transport NI last evening to discuss improvements to the road.

Improvements to road infrastructure are one of the most important factors in cutting the risk of road fatalities – straightening roads, widening them, improving their surface, overhauling junctions and so on.

Creating overtaking lanes on long distance single carriageway routes also has a crucial safety role to play, by reducing the likelihood that motorists caught behind slow-moving traffic will attempt the most dangerous manoeuvre on the road – overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic.

Road safety has become a growing priority in recent decades, and rightly so. For all the furore over speed cameras, these are now accepted on routes such as the Bangor to Belfast road, which previously had speed limits that were widely ignored and could be hair raising to drive.

We do not know the exact circumstances of these two deaths. But news of a sudden road death is always the same – a thing that everyone dreads hearing of in a loved one and some people go through the nightmare of experiencing.

The good news is that road deaths have fallen relentlessly since the 1970s, despite rising traffic levels. This year 26 people have been killed, compared to 35 in the same period last year – and it was one of the safest years on record. But there is no room for complacency. As these appalling two deaths remind us, we must keep abreast of what works in road safety policy and push ahead with implementing it.