Every Christmas in Northern Ireland it seems the tragedies on the roads come thicker and faster than at any other time of the year. 2024 has, sadly, been no different.
Barely a day has gone past without another name being added to the list of fatalities, increasing the tragic toll on Northern Ireland’s roads this year. In the last 10 days alone, eight people have lost their lives in road accidents.
On Christmas Eve, John Hanna (34) died after a single-vehicle crash on the Downpatrick Road in Ballynahinch, Co Down.
The previous night, December 23, Amy Stokes died in a single-vehicle accident near Derrylin in Fermanagh.
The 20-year-old, from the Ballyconnell area of Co Cavan, had been married just three months earlier and recently discovered she was to become a mum.
Earlier that day, a lorry driver in his 40s, died in a crash in the Moylagh Road area of Beragh.
And in Armagh, a family is mourning a father and son following a two-vehicle accident on the Killylea Road. Each as heartbreaking as the other. The number could have been even higher.
On Sunday morning, the PSNI posted an image from another accident after which a man was arrested for drink-driving, calling describing the collision between Portavogie and Cloughey as ‘carnage’.
The PSNI, aided by road safety groups, make a huge effort every December to get the road safety message across.
The ripple effect of every accident can have devastating and long-lasting consequences for families, friends and entire communities.
And it’s those consequences that should provoke a major rethink at Stormont when it comes to ensuring all our roads are in fit and proper condition for all the traffic that uses them these days.
Rural roads, in particular those west of the Bann, have been deteriorating for decades and there has been an imbalance in funding to ensure they are maintained to a good enough standard.
Heels have been dragged too on major schemes like the A5 between Londonderry and Aughnacloy and the A1 between Lisburn and Newry.
These are roads which have seen a marked rise in the number of vehicles travelling on them, without measures to ensure they are fit and able to safely carry the increased level of traffic. Let’s hope those projects, at least, progress in 2025.
Finance is needed to continue the promotion of road safety.
The more we hear it, the more likely it will remain with us, and the more likely those who might otherwise have lost their lives remain by our sides as well.