THREE Limerick road safety campaign groups have said that they have “lost confidence” in the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and believe it is “no longer fit for purpose”.
Limerick Cycle Bus, Limerick Cycling Campaign, and Limerick Pedestrian Network have all co-signed a letter hitting out at the RSA over what they say is the organisation’s failure to ensure road safety for all road users owing to the number of fatal road traffic collisions on Ireland’s roads.
The number of fatal collisions has been on the rise so far in 2024, with 58 people having lost their lives on Irish roads in the first three months of 2024.
Two people have lost their lives on Limerick roads so far this year. Darragh Dullea and Cillian Kirwan died when the car they were in hit a wall on the N69 at Ballyengland, near Askeaton in February.
14-year-old Savannah Calvert died in August 2023 when she was hit by a car on Bank Place in Limerick City.
The letter, signed by a number of road safety campaigners nationwide, expresses the belief that the RSA is failing in its mission to reduce road deaths.
“The mission of the RSA is to save lives and prevent injuries by reducing the number and severity of collisions on the road. It is responsible for the implementation of our national Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030, the primary aim of which is to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on Irish roads by 50 per cent by 2030,” the letter read.
“The number of deaths on our roads is not reducing. It is worsening. 16 more people have been killed this year than during the same period last year. The RSA is failing in its core mission.”
The letter continued that “on Child Safety Day (February 7), the Road Safety Authority distributed over 40,000 high visibility vests to pre-schools in the country, focusing on the potential victims of road violence, those with the least responsibility and the least capacity to make any difference to road safety.”
The groups says that the RSA is also not making data on collisions available to road safety auditors, and that public discussions around road traffic collisions frame the cause of accidents around the victim and their mode of transport, rather than the root causes of fatal collisions.
“The RSA is not providing up-to-date and comprehensive data which can be used to make our roads safer,” the letter read.
The RSA did not respond for comment at the time of going to print.
