Northern Ireland’s most deadly roads

By Lisa Smyth
Friday, 4 July 2008

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Demands were today made for hi-tech safety measures to be extended across Northern Ireland to combat traffic fatalities as the Belfast Telegraph reveals the province's most dangerous roads.

The statistics make for grim reading — and reinforce public calls for safety initiatives to be introduced on a number of notoriously perilous roads throughout Northern Ireland.

According to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, the most treacherous road in the province is the A1, the main Belfast to Dublin Road. Between 2000 and 2006, 36 people perished in accidents along the notorious accident blackspot.

In 2003 alone, 11 people were killed along the route during one of the most bloody periods on Northern Ireland's roads, with five people killed in one accident on the road.

A female driver and two women passengers in a black Ford Mondeo and a male driver and a woman in a blue Audi 80 all died in the crash, which was described by emergency services at the time as a "scene of devastation" .

In a separate incident, a fireman helping to remove bodies from the cars was struck by another car. He was taken to hospital for treatment for leg injuries.

The Falls Road in west Belfast, where the highest number of road traffic accidents (RTCs) occurred in Northern Ireland in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2004, was the scene of six deaths between 2000 and 2006.

Six people were also killed on the Belfast Road, the main road between Bangor and Belfast, during the same period.

In an effort to cut the number of fatalities on the road, the Government has implemented a number of schemes including a 'Slow Down' sign which is activated by speeding cars and earlier this year a new state-of-the-art Speed Enforcement Camera System (SPECS) was switched on.

The introduction of the speed cameras, which calculates the average speed of motorists along the busy route, was welcomed by local residents and DUP MLA Jim Wells said the technology should be extended across the province.

"They seem to slow traffic down dramatically," he said.

"I think there needs to be more investment in these cameras, particularly on the more dangerous stretches right across Northern Ireland.

"They do the trick of slowing people down to speeds that maybe even if there are accidents they are less serious and can avoid fatalities."

His comments were supported by the Royal Society of Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) who added that more could be done.

Ita McErlean, the Northern Ireland Home Safety Manager with RoSPA, said that while speed cameras are effective, they should be used in conjunction with a range of other schemes.

She said engineering measures, traffic calming, advertising and speed awareness course are all useful additional tools in combating speed related accidents, in addition to the use of speed cameras.

"In Northern Ireland, as in other parts of the UK, we have seen a welcome reduction in the number of road deaths in recent years," she explained.

"But there is no room for complacency and, as these figures from the Belfast Telegraph show, too many families are still experiencing the terrible consequences of tragedies on our roads.

Ms McErlean said the high number of fatalities could be tackled through a combination of education, engineering and enforcement — for example by reducing the drink drive limit and by encouraging motorists to take part in refresher courses.

Meanwhile, the Ballyhill Road in Antrim and the Ballygawley Road in Tyrone proved to be equally as dangerous with six deaths on each road between 2000 and 2006.

The Ballygawley Road hit the headlines earlier this year when 16-year-old Nicola Murray was killed and her nine-year-old cousin, Grainne Mallon, was critically injured after a horror smash between a lorry and schoolbus. The two girls, both wearing seatbelts, were sitting together at the rear of the bus when the accident happened. The impact crushed both girls against seats in front of them.