Concern over road deaths as restrictions on travel ease

‘Need to take extra care’ ‘An excuse to take risks’

SAFETY chiefs fear an increase in road deaths despite travel restrictions reducing traffic.

The AA has also warned of drivers being ‘rusty’ behind the wheel as they have driven relatively little in recent times.

There were 21 deaths on the roads in the first three months of the year compared to 46 for the same time in 2020.

But this is comparing prelockdown figures in 2020 to statistics from a time when Covid restrictions prevent people travelling further than 5km from home. The restrictions were eased yesterday to let people travel anywhere within their own county or up to 20km from home if they cross a county border.

And last month fatal accidents were running at ‘a similar rate’ to pre-Covid-19 levels. The Road Safety Authority said yesterday it fears that if the current fatality rate continues there could be an overall rise in deaths this year.

A spokesman for the RSA said: ‘While the figures do show a decrease in the number of fatalities in the first quarter of 2021 compared to 2020, it is against a backdrop of a large increase in road deaths that occurred in the first quarter of 2020. The drop in deaths, especially in January and February this year, is probably due to the travel restrictions in place and Garda enforcement of those restrictions.

‘It should be noted, however, that the ten deaths in March of this year was running at a similar rate pre-Covid-19 and that to date in April eight people have lost their lives.

‘If this fatality rate was to continue we would be looking at a rise in deaths.’

The spokesman added: ‘Our message to all road users is to please not forget about road safety and the need to take extra care.

‘This means slowing down, not driving while impaired, always wearing a seatbelt... and, critically, watching out for cyclists and pedestrians.’

And the AA warned that drivers returning to the roads should be aware they could be ‘rusty’ behind the wheel after a year of Covid restrictions.

The AA’s Barry Arnold said: ‘We share the same concerns as the RSA. Last year was a bad year on the roads and particularly when you consider that for effectively nine months we were under some form of Covid restrictions.

‘As we gradually ease restrictions this year, the concern is that as people start to travel a bit more, that could catch up with last year, and then the risk is it passes last year’s figures.’ He said there are ‘a couple of factors here’, adding: ‘One of them is that element of “rust”, because people haven’t been driving as much and haven’t been able to take long journeys or crosscountry driving for so long, there’s a risk there.

‘The other thing is there has been a significant increase in the number of cyclists, and pedestrians and anywhere they encounter traffic, they are at risk, people need to be on the lookout for them.

‘Also, people are travelling on the roads that are a bit quieter and some people will see that as an excuse to take risks that they ordinarily wouldn’t; they can get away with the extra couple of kilometres over the speed limit, they can overtake where they shouldn’t, and all of that plays a role in this.’ Mr Arnold said the fall in deaths ‘is welcome but it’s not surprising when for the first three months of the year we were comparing lockdown to non-lockdown’.

He added: ‘As we now move forward and are comparing lockdown to lockdown, I think the concern would be, particularly as we get to later in the year and the country starts to reopen, that those could start to spike pretty quickly.’

Traffic levels have been increasing slowly since the start of the year following the move to Level 5 restrictions in December, the Central Statistics Office reported. Traffic in Dublin was 28% higher in the last week of March than the second week of January. CSO assistant principal Noreen Dorgan said: ‘Car traffic volumes increased in the week beginning March 21 compared with the previous week in regional locations by 10.5%.

‘For the latest week beginning March 28, car traffic volumes were 120.5% higher than the same week in 2020 at regional locations and 127.9% higher in Dublin.’ christian.mccashin@dailymail.ie