The Irish Cycling Campaign has called for the banning of articulated lorries from city centre deliveries, following a spate of cyclist and pedestrian deaths in recent years.
Heavy goods vehicles (HGVs)have accounted for 78 per cent of all cyclist deaths in Dublin over the past eight years and account for one-quarter of all road deaths.
The Irish Cycling Campaign has called on the Department of Transport to draw up urgently a national policy to reduce the number of road deaths caused by these trucks.
Mr David Maher, spokesman for the group, said the statistics were "shocking" and the high number of city centre deaths was "totally out of balance" with other European countries.
He said the National Safety Council (NSC) had failed dismally to address the issue and was instead firmly fixated on victim blaming.
However, the NSC rejected this claim and said it had run a campaign last year targeting HGV drivers and vulnerable road users.
The campaign highlighted the existence of the "danger zone" or blind spot around trucks, NSC spokesman Brian Farrell said. This problem may have been a factor in up to six older pedestrian deaths in 2003 alone.
Yesterday, the Irish Cycling Campaign called on the department to ban the parking of HGVs in residential areas.
