A mum who lost her son in a road traffic crash six-years-ago has described new figures showing the scale of Northern Ireland’s road deaths as “devastating”.
The rate of road deaths in Northern Ireland continues to be much higher than other parts of the UK, road safety charity Brake has revealed ahead of Road Safety Week (November 17-23).
Across the UK, 1,695 people died on the roads in 2023 and 28,967 were seriously injured – with road deaths and serious injuries showing no significant signs of reduction.
So far in 2024 (until November 14) 57 people have been killed in road traffic collisions in Northern Ireland. That’s the same number as the same date in 2023, and already two more than the whole of 2022.
There have been two fatalities this month alone, including 29-year-old Eoin Lynch, from Castlederg who died following a crash in the Orchard Road area and 42-year-old Yevhenii Ivanenko who passed away after a two-vehicle collision in Enniskillen on the Derrylin Road as he was coming home from work.
And though the 2023 figure for Northern Ireland fell by 1% compared to the previous year, 951 people were killed or seriously injured on our roads, making them the most dangerous by head of population across the UK.
According to Monica Heaney – who lost her son Karl following a crash back in May 2018 – the slow process of trying to make road improvements is hurting the efforts to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries.
While progress had been made on the notorious A5 corridor between Derry and Aughnacloy, a stretch of road which has claimed almost 60 lives since improvements were first planned some 15 years ago, Ms Heaney has been campaigning for vital work to be done on the A1 between Lisburn and Newry.
It was along the A1 dual-carriageway road that her son was killed in a collision near Banbridge.
Monica Heaney who lost her son Karl in May 2018
While her energies have been channelled into campaigning for improvements, she has also been volunteering with Road Safe NI, supporting hundreds of others who have lost loved ones through road traffic accidents.
“Since Karl’s death I have been volunteering with Road Safe NI and have developed support services through The Road Ahead campaign,” she said.
“It is devastating for us to see the number of collisions is showing no sign of slowing.
“People have no idea of the trail of devastation that follows these collisions. Lives are shattered forever,” she said.
“The frustrating thing is that the majority can be avoided if we could all take responsibility for road safety.
“We know the A1 upgrade is moving closer,” she added. “But it’s still behind schedule and every road user using that road is vulnerable and at high risk of being involved in a serious collision.
“We are currently supporting so many people affected by that road through our support services, but sadly we expect this number to continue to rise while we wait for work to start.”
According to statistics released, in 2023 the Mid and East Antrim council area saw the biggest increase in road casualties, with the number killed or seriously injured up 56% from 2022.
There have also been significant rises in Fermanagh and Omagh (up 24.2%) and Ards and North Down (up 23.5%) and Antrim and Newtownabbey (up 17.2%) while the figure rose in Derry and Strabane by 10.2%.
The overall total did fall by 1.5% in 2023, but still came in just short of 1,000 people killed or seriously injured (951) for the year.
27 year old Karl Heaney from the Warrenpoint area
Belfast saw the largest decrease in road casualties between 2022 and 2023 – the number of people killed or seriously injured on roads in the borough falling by 21.8%, from 170 to 133.
The statistics show that in 2019 some 8,872 total casualties were recorded, and while that figures dropped in 2020 to 6,487, the first year of Covid lockdowns, it has been steadily rising ever since. In 2023 it was back to near pre-Covid levels, with 7,985 casualties.
UK Road Safety charity Brake is now calling on the government to support a new Road Victims’ Charter which demands essential action for road victims.
A survey carried out by the charity showed 79% of people believe families bereaved or seriously injured from a road crash should be able to access the same level of support as families of homicide victims.
Ross Moorlock, chief executive at Brake, said: “Every road victim deserves the very highest standard of support and for that to happen we need a coordinated approach and national standards that meet best practice for post-crash response. We need national, multi-year funding for the provision of support to the affected road victim community.
“Our families have told us what they want and what they need – and that includes recognition of the trauma of sudden road death and injury, parity with other victim groups, sentencing to fit the crime and lessons learned to prevent future road death and injury.”