Mother’s plea for action on junction
KILTEALY FAMILY AT THEIR WITS END AS CARS CONTINUE TO CRASH INTO BACK GARDEN
A KILTEALY family has been joined by the local community in calling for action to be taken on a notoriously bad junction after a nine-year-old child narrowly missed being mowed down by a car that crashed into a garden on the crossroads.
Mother-of-three Amanda Cloke, who lives on the junction with the Bunclody road at Doran’s Bridge, says that she sees roughly three accidents a month there, with many of the cars landing in her garden.
On this latest occasion, her nine-year-old son Cian had been out playing football in the garden. Luckily he had just moved away from the goalposts, when a car came tumbling over the ditch where moments earlier he had been playing.
A Kiltealy family has been joined by the local community in calling for action to be taken on a notoriously bad junction after a nine-year-old child narrowly missed being mowed down by a car that crashed into a garden on the crossroads. Mother-of-three Amanda Cloke, who lives on the junction with the Bunclody road at Doran’s Bridge, says that she sees roughly three accidents a month there, with many of the cars landing in her garden.
On this latest occasion, her nine-year-old son Cian had been out playing football in the garden. Luckily he had just moved away from the goalposts, when a car came tumbling over the ditch where moments earlier he had been playing.
‘Something has to be done,’ said Amanda, who is at her wits end. ‘ The car came into the garden and hit the goalposts where he had been playing a few minutes beforehand. The child is absolutely traumatised now. He’s staying down with my mother and is afraid to come home. He’s suffering panic attacks and everything. It’s not fair.’
Amanda says that cars crashing into her garden is a regular occurrence.
‘We get two or three cars crashing her every month,’ she said. ‘You get cars that just don’t stop at the junction, they go straight through. Then you have people who can’t see properly when they pull out. A few of us here locally have contacted the council and local TDs, but the problem has still not been solved. At this stage you wonder does somebody have to be killed before they do something? My little boy was lucky to walk away with his life.’
A large crowd gathered at Amanda’s home on Thursday to show their support, among them local man Des Farrell, who himself had a crash at the notorious junction. ‘ A big Volkswagen Toureg pulled out in front of me and I heard the bang and don’t remember anything else,’ he said. ‘You can’t see properly coming off those side roads and I think a lot of people coming from Bunclody think that they have the right of way and go straight through.’
Another local, Noel Armstrong, recalled a fatal accident at the junction many years ago and said there have been several other collisions there since. ‘I don’t ever want to come here to the scene of a fatal accident,’ he said. ‘ The land around the junction is available and local contractors and farmers have said they are willing to help if needed.’
Cllr John O’Rourke said that it was time for action and that it was only by the grace of God that young Cian had not been seriously injured or killed.
‘ The shrubbery on the road sides needs to be cleared out for starters,’ he said. ‘ Then maybe
we need to look at more signage, maybe even rumblestrips and flashing beacons and some kind of barrier that will protect from cars entering the garden here. It’s great to see the local community out in force on this issue though and we will bring their concerns back to the engineer and do all we can to improve the situation here.’
Local councillor Kathleen Codd Nolan said that quite a bit of money had been spent on signage leading up to the junction already.
‘It’s been audited several times by the council,’ she said. ‘Significant resources have gone into it. It must be one of the best signposted junctions in the country, but for whatever reason it’s not working. Roads Engineer Joanne Kehoe has applied for funding to change the signage, I don’t know whether that will make a difference. Joanne is also sending out the Safety Officer David Codd to examine it again. We’re trying our best to improve the situation for the last few years, but people don’t seem to take heed.’
Finally, Parish Priest Fr Jim Fegan said that it was time for action now before it’s too late.
‘ The talking has to stop,’ he said. We had a child here playing on his mid-term break and he could’ve been killed. We need action.’