Three young men might not have died in a horrific traffic collision if there had been better road warning signs, a Belfast inquest heard yesterday.
Gary Black (23), David Anderson (18), and Pierce Harvey (18) were killed when the Ford Mondeo car they were travelling in overshot a junction, plunged over a steep embankment and crashed into a warehouse at Newton Abbey on the outskirts of north Belfast in January last year.
The families of the three dead and the coroner for Greater Belfast, Mr John Leckey, expressed concern that traffic signs were ineffective in warning drivers they were approaching a junction.
Mr Leckey said: "The families have understandable concerns about this particular junction, and if things had been different regarding the warnings that there was a T-junction, the outcome may not have been a fatal one."
A police sergeant and a forensic expert both gave evidence to the inquest, calling on the Department of Regional Development (DRD) to install warning signs at the side of the road where the embankment leads to a steep 4.3 metre drop.
Ms Theresa Anderson, whose son David was the front passenger in the car, was shocked that a year after the tragedy the department had not improved signage at the junction.
It was revealed there have been a total of 10 accidents at the junction of the Hyde Park and Mallusk Road between January 1999 and September 2004. Three of these accidents involved vehicles overshooting the junction and ending up on the embankment, but only one had proved fatal.
The coroner described the fatal accident as "absolutely dreadful".