The number of people being killed or seriously injured on roads across Northern Ireland is showing no sign of slowing down.
In fact, there’s only one thing that had led to a reduction in the number of casualties over the past decade — and it was nothing to do with improvements to infrastructure or road safety schemes from government. It was the Covid pandemic, when there were fewer cars on the roads due to restrictions.
That says so much about both the slow pace of change where road improvement schemes stall and the inability of so many road users to learn from the figures, which do shout loudly when reproduced in black and white.
UK-wide road safety charity Brake has launched Road Safety Week with a sobering list of statistics that should have everyone who gets behind the wheel of a vehicle thinking.
Here, 951 people were killed or seriously injured on our roads in 2023, making them the most dangerous, by head of population, in the UK.
It’s so obvious that something has to change if those figures are ever to be put into reverse.
Every week should be Road Safety Week, but for far too many drivers getting behind the wheel, that simply isn’t the case. And the result is too many needlessly heartbroken families, with the devastating effects felt throughout communities.
The number of people killed on Northern Ireland roads so far this year is on a par with the same period last year, when, at the end of 2023, 71 people had lost their lives and hundreds more had suffered serious injuries. And now, with darker nights and more dangerous road conditions, there’s every likelihood the number will increase.
But as well as taking a responsibility as individuals, there’s a responsibility on government to step up the messaging and, even more importantly, provide the finance for road improvements that are so badly needed in many parts of Northern Ireland.
So too is there need to provide the vital support for families who have suffered a devastating loss.
It shouldn’t all be down to charities like Road Safe NI to take on that increasingly heavy burden of fighting for the right to be safe on the road.
Listen to the pleas of mothers such as Monica Heaney. It’s been six years since her son Karl was killed on the A1 near Banbridge. And despite six years of asking, none of her pleas for improvements to safety on that stretch of road have been answered.
It is, sadly, only a matter of time before another family is left devastated by a needless death. That should be enough to set the wheels in motion.
The tragedy, however, is that it never has been before, no matter how many have lost their lives.