Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
CARNAGE CO CORK
Connolly said: “I’ve raised it at meetings before. There have been 14 accidents there since the new bypass was erected.
“We tried to get the National Roads Authority to do something to address it.”
Meanwhile, there was further devastation earlier yesterday when two US tourists were killed on the N20 Cork to Mallow Road after a three-vehicle crash near Blarney.
The victims, who were in their 60s and from Indiana, were travelling in a Skoda Octavia with their spouses.
The wife of the man who died and the husband of the woman who lost her life were seriously injured and were being treated at Cork University Hospital last night.
The incident happened at the Waterloo Junction, a busy back road into the tourist town which was described as a highly dangerous area by Independent councillor Kevin Conway yesterday.
The pregnant driver of the second car, a Peugeot, was taken to Cork University Hospital with injuries described as non-life threatening, while the driver of the truck was uninjured.
Garda investigators spent about six hours at the scene combing the area for clues about what led to the horror pile-up.
The route was closed for most of the day but reopened last night.
A Garda spokesman said: “This stretch of road is currently closed to facilitate an examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators. Diversions are in place on the N20 Cork to Mallow Road and Garda are asking people travelling from Mallow to take alternative routes.”
Mr Conway, who lives half a kilometre from the scene, said it was a tragedy and the road was known as highly dangerous with “significant speed” very common.
He added: “I’ve been saying for quite some time that area is an accident waiting to happen because the filter roads have been
CO CORK YESTERDAY
removed by and large from Cork to Mallow off the exits coming out on to it and I could never understand why that was the case.”
Asked how the changes had made the road more dangerous, he said: “You’re exiting off Waterloo Junction straight on to the traffic.
“You’re exiting off Ballygibbon Junction on to the main Cork to Mallow Road, straight off the traffic. There’s always been a significant problem there anyway. Because even if the traffic was travelling in the same direction there is a filter lane turning right, but that filter lane, trying to cross that road at the best of times is lethal, because the oncoming traffic is coming downhill just coming off a dual two-way system on to a one-way system.”
Efforts were continuing last night to contact relatives of the US victims.
Road safety spokesman Brian Farrell said: “It’s been a dreadful day for road safety in this country. If anything is to come from this loss of life, we would hope that it would serve as a reminder that using the roads is the most dangerous thing that we do each day.”
Gardai have appealed for witnesses to contact them as they try to piece together the details of both crashes.