THE NUMBER of road users losing their lives has reached its highest monthly total for more than a year. Three motorists were killed in the first two days of the bank holiday weekend.
Fatal collisions in Kildare, Mayo and Limerick have pushed the total for May to 31, the highest monthly total since February 2008, when 32 people lost their lives.
Three men were injured, one of them fatally, when three cars collided in Co Kildare at 7am on Saturday. The collision occurred at Pike Bridge on the main Maynooth to Leixlip road.
A man in his 20s who was driving one of the vehicles was killed.
Two other men who were driving the other cars were taken to Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, west Dublin. Neither man’s injuries are life-threatening.
The road was closed for a number of hours as Garda forensic collision investigators carried out an examination of the scene.
On Friday evening, a woman in her 50s was killed in a three-vehicle collision on the N5 at Bohola, Co Mayo. Her car collided with another vehicle at 6.35pm. A third vehicle arrived at the scene and also crashed.
The drivers of the other two vehicles were injured, but their conditions were described by gardaí as not life-threatening. The road was closed for a Garda examination.
Also on Friday evening, a man who was from Malaysia was killed when the car in which he was travelling was in collision with another vehicle on the main Limerick to Dublin road at Kildimo, Co Limerick.
The incident occurred at 6pm. Another male passenger travelling with the dead man was injured. The drivers of both cars were not injured.
The man who was killed has been named as Wai Kit Kwong (23), with an address at Eason’s Avenue, Shandon Street, Cork.
The increase in road deaths this month has come following a period of sustained reductions in fatalities on the Republic’s roads.
Up to the end of April, the number of people killed on the roads was 80, down 14 on in the same period last year. However, when the figures for May are included, there have been 111 deaths on the roads so far this year, just two fewer than the same period last year.
Garda sources say a bank holiday road safety campaign has been in place over the weekend. Senior officers from the Garda Traffic Corps had given a number of broadcast interviews last week urging people to slow down and to desist from drink-driving.
The Government’s approach to continuing efforts to reduce road fatalities has come in for criticism of late from the Road Safety Authority.
The authority’s chairman Gay Byrne said the Department of Finance had “swept aside” the authority’s entire annual budget of €3 million for its safe driving advertising campaigns.
Also at the weekend, a teenager was killed following a collision in Co Tyrone. He died after his car struck a wall at the junction at Drum Road and Sandholes Road near Cookstown at about 4.20am on Saturday. He was the only person in the car.
Also in Co Tyrone, a pilot and one passenger escaped serious injury after a light aircraft made an emergency landing in a field close to the Pomeroy Road in Dungannon.
Local farmer Kenny McClean saw what happened. “I heard the plane coming over and you could hear it banging and clucking,” he said. “I ran out and saw it landing in the field just down the road.”
The two men were taken to Craigavon Area Hospital for treatment.
