Brennan may seek study of peak accidents

The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, has held exploratory talks with the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and Forensic Medicine on whether it should carry out a study - including toxicology tests - of road traffic victims who are killed at peak danger times.

The Minister is concerned that almost one-third of all road deaths so far this year have involved young people aged between 16 and 25, a high proportion of whom were killed between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m., many of those at weekends.

The Minister's discussions with Prof Denis Cusack of the bureau predate the deaths of another five people on the Republic's roads in a 24-hour period from Thursday morning.

Three of the dead were teenagers who were killed in the single-vehicle accident late on Thursday night in Buncrana, Co Donegal.

The Buncrana deaths bring to 59 the number of young people aged between 16 and 29 who have been killed on the Republic's roads so far this year.

The 59 deaths represent just under 30 per cent of the 201 total number of people killed - 70 per cent of whom were male.

According to a spokesman for the Minister, Mr Brennan is concerned about the high level of fatalities of young people, particularly the number of young people killed at the weekends, and has spoken to the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and Forensic Medicine at University College Dublin about the possibility of obtaining toxicology studies from the bodies of those who have been killed.

It has emerged that the latest delay in the publication of the State's road safety strategy for 2004 to 2006 is because it now needs to be translated into Irish.

According to a spokesman for Mr Brennan, the need to have an Irish version of the strategy printed emerged from the recent legislation on place names brought forward by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr Ó Cuív.

Legislation on a new Road Traffic Bill, which the Minister had hoped would be enacted before the summer recess, is now not likely until the Dáil resumes in September.

Meanwhile the 48-year-old woman killed when her car was involved in a crash with a truck at Cree, near Kilrush in Clare, was named as Ms Margaret Haverty, from Borrisokane, Nenagh, Co Tipperary. Separately, a 71-year-old woman died after being hit by a truck as she crossed Castle Street in Cahir.