Hard hitting safety talk at Coláiste Fionnchua
“I’ve been to 11 fatalities this year, and three last week. I’m sick of it”.
Those were the words from Mitchelstown-based Inspector Fergal O’Donovan of the Cork County Garda Roads Policing Unit when he spoke with students from Coláiste Fionnchua, Mitchelstown last Friday morning. Saying he had to attend every fatality in the county, he had been at three in the last week alone.
“How many students are in the school? 400? That’s half of ye gone. That’s first year, second year, third year gone. It’s all young people are dying again, aged 16 to 25, and that’s ye”.
Inspector O’Donovan was referring to the 188 walkers, cyclists, passengers, and of course drivers who were killed in road collisions last year. The number looks likely to be higher again this year unless something drastically changes in the coming months.
The local garda was speaking at a safety morning where students saw the local fire brigade cut a car into pieces, to demonstrate how someone is actually cut out of a wreckage. Station officer Bob Dalton explained to the students how in reallife the damage was not likely to be so neat and tidy, as cars and victims alike are pulled out from beneath trucks or from crushed vehicles.
It has to be said that up until Inspector O’Donovan started speaking,
the students had looked mostly bored even as they saw what the wreckage of a car looked like. This is something TheA vondhu witnessed at a similar event last year at Presentation Secondary School nearby, where CBS boys told this reporter how ‘cool’ the equipment the fire brigade was using, with only the few girls we spoke with registering the importance of speaking up if the driver is going too fast.
In 2023, 78% of road fatalities were male. That’s 147 men, compared to 41 women. Pedestrians accounted for almost a quarter of all those killed. Almost three-quarters of colli
sions in 2023 were on rural roads. Last year, the highest-risk age group was those aged 16 to 25.
Up until May 7th this year, there have been 71 people killed on Irish roads, compared to 56 last year. Friday's safety demonstration was organised by Cork County Council.