Fight to cut road deaths continues

It was 11 years ago on March 30 since 18-year-old Mullingar student Darren Price lost his life.

Sadly, the Price family was one of almost 400 hit with a similar tragedy that year.

“In 2006 there were 365 deaths on the road – one person for every day of the year,” says Darren’s mother, Donna.

“Last year, it was 188 – so it has almost halved.”

That’s a reflection of many factors, including, says Donna, the creation in the year of Darren’s death of the Road Safety Authority (RSA).

Donna welcomes the reduction in the level of road deaths.

However, she points out, for the families of every one of those 188 people who died last year, the death was not just the end of a life, but the beginning of a probably unfamiliar process that will likely take them into the coroner’s court, and through the legal system seeking to understand what caused their particular tragedy.

That’s what happened for Donna, her husband Adrian, and their three other children after the fatal accident on the road between Kilbeggan and Tyrrellspass that took Darren’s life.

“We weren’t looking for retribution: we wanted answers,” says Donna.

Unfortunately, she says, they never got all the answers they wanted – and never will; they will never know for sure what caused the accident in which Darren died.

But through changes that have come about – in part thanks to the Irish Road Victims Association (IRVA) - there is more information collected by the gardaí and there is, therefore, more information available.

“Collision investigation has improved: there were no forensic investigators brought to a scene,” she says, adding that now, especially where there has been a fatality, investigators do visit the scene.

Now also parties involved in accidents are breath-tested – but still not yet in place is forensic examination of phone records to show if the driver’s attention was diverted by a call.

Donna is actually chairperson and co-founder of the IRVA along with Mullingar army officer Noel O’Callaghan, who had seen three of his colleagues lose their lives in road traffic accidents.

Set up in 2012, the IRVA provides what Donna terms “emotional and practical support” to families, advising them what lies ahead, advising them what steps to follow.

It helps several hundred a year, and welcomes around 400 people a year to its annual memorial service in Mullingar.

“Families take great comfort from knowing they are not on their own,” says Donna, explaining that after an experience of tragedy on the roads, you can need that comfort.

“Because,” she continues, “you do feel you are on your own and very isolated, because we [the families] are not included in the garda investigation and it’s very hard to get information.

“In fact, you can go into your inquest and maybe hear things for the first time – and we want families to have that information so they’re prepared, and so they can take proper advice. It’s very hard to get information,” she says.

This remains a big issue with Donna, who still feels acutely that she would have benefited from having more information on what actually caused the collision between the truck and her son’s car.

She believes that an inquest could be the forum where families get that sort of information – but that there would be value too in families being able to sit down with the investigating gardaí and a superior officer, and being able to ask freely the questions that concern them.

It surprises many to realise that families don’t automatically get copies of the garda files that are collated for the inquest – and until recently, they actually had to pay for copies of the documents the wanted.

“It could cost over €2,000 to get the files from the inquest – you would be charged €60 for the sketch and €40 for each statement, even though they were just photocopies,” she says.