Many families across Ireland, north and south, are experiencing an exceptionally difficult seasonal period because they have lost loved one on our roads.
There can only be deep alarm that annual fatality rates on both sides of the border rose last year, and there will be concern that 2024 could still reach equally dreadful patterns.
A shocking 71 people died on the north’s roads in 2023, representing the worst figure for eight years, while up until yesterday another 67 had been killed so far this year.
In the Republic, the death toll for last year was 184, the worst since 2016, while the total so far in 2024 stood yesterday at 170.
What is particularly disturbing is that the Irish statistics are disproportionately high when compared to the UK, where deaths in road traffic accidents have been dropping over recent years.
There is no logical reason for overall driving standards to be notably worse on this side of the Irish Sea so other factors have to be examined.
It will be accepted that our main roads need to be improved in many regions, with the A5 between counties Derry and Tyrone, providing a key link between Donegal and Dublin, the most notorious example.
The A5 carries an exceptionally high daily volume of traffic, but remains largely a single carriageway along a dangerously winding route through both rural and urban districts.
While a plan for an upgrade to a full dual carriageway was announced almost 20 years ago, it has been surrounded by complications and delays, and, entirely unacceptably, 57 people have died on the A5 since then.
Road safety campaigners have demanded action, but groups connected to the agricultural sector have raised environmental and other objections.
A public inquiry completed its report in 2023 after examining all the related issues, and it was finally confirmed in October of this year that work on the project would start on a phased basis in early 2025.
Although there will be enormous relief that an end is in sight to the A5 saga, responsibility for ensuring that deaths on our roads are kept to a minimum goes well beyond the civil authorities.
It is up to every individual motorist to consider their own attitude as they set out on journeys, with detailed analysis showing that speeding remains the main cause of fatalities.
Young drivers are very much at risk, especially in rural areas, as year after year they are seriously overrepresented in collision statistics.
We can all make a difference, and the hope has to be that 2025 will be the stage when the grim annual records reflecting tragedies on our roads will at last display that the message is getting across.
