Why Does Donegal Have So Many Fatal Road Accidents?

FishOnABike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121339718#Comment_121339718

Comparing populations, Cork has roughly three and a half times the population of Donegal so proportionatly Cork's number of road traffic deaths is lower.

mykrodot

To answer the original question in one word: Boyracers

My sister has lived in rural Donegal for 30 years, I regularly visit, the back roads are used as racetracks. Every young lad is into racing cars, its a culture. She was driving her kids to school many years ago and was crashed into by the neighbours boy racer son, on a bad bend, at 8.30am, going 90 miles an hour. They were lucky to walk away. Boyracers and culture.

No need for speculation. If you live in Donegal you know!

magicbastarder

Some stats from last year. Doesn't seem to report any longer term averages; given the small populations of some counties, they'd be very prone to statistical blips.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/irelands-deadliest-roads-counties-most-dangerous-for-road-users-revealed/42159621.html

PARlance

My grandmother was from Donegal and we spend a good bit of time up there. Whatever about statistics, it's certainly a place where I am fearful on the roads. There's a real sense of lawlessness up there, that's what happens when an area is/feels forgotten and neglected, I suppose. Plenty other reasons as well.

I'm from Mayo, and there's plenty of boy racers etc here, I would consider Mayo a bit nuts as well, especially in the more remote areas, but Donegal just seems a different level altogether.

The first time we brought the kids up (when they were old enough to be able to take things in, they had been up as toddlers etc), we got to Gweedore and we were met by two quad bikes coming towards us racing on the main road, there were being driven hard by two kids who couldn't have been much older than 12.

Our kids quickly came to terms with "that's just Donegal" and it's a phrase commonly used.

BrianD3

Nothing wrong with Donegal roads or drivers. KEEP 'ER LIT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVYjNII-upg

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121340230#Comment_121340230

Leitrim had no deaths in 2021, and 1 in 2022. Probably billions of miles travelled on those roads during that time. It is a safe place.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121338930#Comment_121338930

years of being near Derry area where an amount of lawlessness was part of life.

Eh? The derry/donegal border area was one of the most heavily policed parts of the country per capita for decades, right up to the early 2000s.

Most of the opinions on this thread are the stuff you'd hear from John in the pub, the self proclaimed expert of every topic from immunology to modern warfare to economics and now a forensic crash investigator

John_Rambo

I drive around the country and Donegal drivers are by far the worst drivers I've seen. Cork my have a worse record but it's a bigger county with more people.

The under 30 age group is bad, but the immaturity amongst older (30+) drivers is staggering. The desperate car control, bad judgement, inability to drive, lack of skills, dangerous driving, stupid overtakes, phone usage, throwing rubbish out of windows, drink driving & drug driving signifies a general "F* you" to other road users within their community. It's unmatched in the country and it's echoed by the innocent people they wipe out with their antics be they other road users or passengers.

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121340287#Comment_121340287

I think the lawlessness in question was the reason for that like...

PARlance

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121340275#Comment_121340275

Leitrim drivers are very slow and cautious, I put it down to the 8 pints myself.

RavenBea17b

Driving in Ireland is stressful enough - roads are shocking in places. What is it about drivers wanting to drive as close as is possible without actually hitting you, trying to push you out of their way. Undertaking - general awareness of surroundings and upcoming issues is shockingly bad - interpreting scenarios . Entering a motorway or dual carriageway - no-one seems to signal that they are entering, the rule is the entering car does NOT got priority over the drivers already on the road. Here is Ireland, it seems that many people have the opposite attitude. Its like move out of my way , even though it may not be possible for cars already on the road to do so.

Other contribution to behaviours of some, not all of course, is not driving appropriately to the road conditions - physical weather , physical road, both.

Friends and family in France have driven in Ireland and were scared at times.

A cousin got done for speeding in France - it was raining and he hadn't dropped his speed. Knowing what he is like, I am surprised that's all he got (bit of a I know better attitude etc)

I had to drive during the early part of storm Agnes, even then people were driving way to fast for the conditions. I think its a general attitude from many people, that they don't care, that they don't think.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121340275#Comment_121340275

Here's a bit of trivia - if Leitrim and Longford were ever to meet in an all Ireland, you'd be able to fit the entire populations of both counties in croke park as spectators. If all driving on Leitrim roads was done by residents only, they'd have to average nearly 30k km each before a billion was reached. That's every man, woman and child, not just motorists.

Straight Talker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121339772#Comment_121339772

Well i do have and have indeed provided the evidence to support my claims.

ednwireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121341883#Comment_121341883

no you didn't, you provided old news articles.

rsa figures for first 6 months of 2023

https://www.rsa.ie/news-events/news/details/2023/08/01/road-deaths-in-the-first-half-of-2023-are-the-worst-for-six-years

it'snot hard to find, can we close this misleading titled thread please.

ShagNastii

It’s 100% a cultural Donegal thing. Driving is utterly reckless across the whole county. It’s not just a boy racer/rally head thing either.

My wife was working in Letterkenny for the year and I used to drive up quite a bit. The Lifford to LK road is small and bendy as hell. I’m in no way a Sunday driver and would tip on. Every kind of car would try and overtake me anywhere on the road regardless of what conditions and or timing was.

ednwireland

I wouldn't call lifford to letterkenny small and winding that's for sure

artanevilla

I never got the bad roads in Donegal thing. They've some of the best maintained roads in the country. Try Tipperary for bad roads. I think it's bad driving more than bad roads, seems to be the culture up there unfortunately which you think have changed by now considering the amount of families that must have been affected by a road death.

Straight Talker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121341944#Comment_121341944

What's misleading about it? I just asked a question why a county with a population of 166,321 (Cork city alone has a bigger population than county Donegal) thousand people, has such an appalling road safety record?

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121342884#Comment_121342884

Why are you particularly appalled by the safety record in Donegal? It is no worse than lots of other counties.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121342515#Comment_121342515

Part of it is, part of it isn't

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121342515#Comment_121342515

It is substandard for a national route and is due for replacement.

But there is no such thing as a bad road, only bad drivers.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121342570#Comment_121342570

Road alignment is a far bigger factor than road surface/maintenance.

Donegal has very low % of engineered roads

Isthisthingon?

I think part of the issue is that for every fatality we hear of, on a sadly weekly basis at this stage , we don't know fully the cause of the accident.

Of course if you lose a loved one, you don't necessarily want the reason made public especially if they were the cause of their own demise, but how often do we hear of an accident, might know of the location and assume the cause because ' its a bad road' ?. Equally, a young man or woman driving in the early hours ' probably had drink / drugs taken or was speeding because he/she was driving a golf' where for all we know a deer might have jumped out in front of them.

To tackle a problem like road deaths you need to review the cold hard facts , no matter how tragic they may be, then you try put a plan in place to try to limit or reduce the likelihood of in happening again.

dxhound2005

The Gardai have to investigate the causes of accidents. And if there is a fatality, there will be an inquest. The Coroner will sometimes make recommendations about things like accident black spots. The Garda investigation can continue after the inquest, and in some cases can lead to court proceedings. These details are published in newspapers and other media. I don't want to put links to particular cases, but they can be found online.

"By law an inquest into a death resulting from a road traffic collision must be held before a jury. The Coroner explains that the inquest aims to establish the cause of this unnatural death without blaming anyone. The Coroner then decides which witnesses are called and what evidence can be entered for hearing."

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121343931#Comment_121343931

I wish someone would go up and tell them, cause they haven't copped on after all these years and continue to drive like lemmings.

Isthisthingon?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121346187#Comment_121346187

The problem here is though, that the enquiry will take place months after the event and will invariably be reported either in local media as a follow up piece or a if a slow news day, a few lines in the national papers. Either way it will be under the radar and will be just another coroners report.

I'm in no way advocating for a morbid national accident coroners report either , and I know the info is there for you to find, its just seems that the media will commit a far more proportionate time to the accident but very little to the outcome of the investigation.

And as you say a coroner can only make recommendations, but is that message being related up the channels to the right people?

pgj2015

Remember the crash in Donegal where they had 8 people in the car, driving at speed, all killed, that is utter madness and I don't think it would happen in any other county.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121347085#Comment_121347085

Shaun Kelly, I think he was the only survivor, 7 died in his car, he killed a 66-year-old man on his way back from bingo too and sneakily tried to blame the accident on the innocent dead victim.

In a county with barely any Gardai he was stopped for speeding again a year later!

pgj2015

What was his punishment?

4 years with 2 years suspended, Jesus.

Speeding in an over loaded car, so stupid.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121346801#Comment_121346801

The stats don't support this. If people in Donegal drive like lemmings, there's counties out there that are worse. Without Googling, i assume you can name them too?

K-9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121339755#Comment_121339755

A few bad ones all right but logically, those high numbers will actually skew the stats and means Donegal is actually safer than it first appears.

Those cases with multiple deaths are very rural areas and no public transport, hence multiple people in cars. Inishowen and West Donegal have very bad roads in particular.

Lot of hidden dips around bends in Donegal. It's a hilly county. All the Donegal accidents seem to happen in the northern half of the county, mainly Inishowen but the occasional elsewhere.

I was watching a biker travel around Ireland and he said, Ireland is probably the most stressful country he has ever biked in. This is due to the speed on windy roads and height of the hedgerows being taller than vehicles and not being able to see around the corners to anticipate danger.

I never thought much about it before, but lowering hedgerows is probably something that could help with anticpating danger. I know we have some biodiversity rules from preventing them being cut.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121345598#Comment_121345598

Therein lies an issue indeed. Air accidents are full reported and available to view online, whether it be an Aer Lingus A320 or John’s little Cessna at the local flying club. The fact that John is well known, doesn’t stop his bad handling, his decision to put cheap fuel in the tanks, his decision to fly solo with brand new varifocal spectacles, or his having being deemed medically unfit to fly his plane being reported in detail for all to check up on. Of course he is not named on the report but everyone knows it’s his accident being reported on. I’m taking examples there from real reports.

there should be an east to find portal of road traffic accident reports. It wouldn’t be naming but everyone in a community would of course known the identities, just like the aviation cases. Maybe the fear is that the ability to read all the technical details would lead to more rage and revenge 🤨 and RTAs are way more commonplace than aircraft ones which could evoke similar response, as happened to a Swiss Air Traffic Controller after a mid-air collision when he was stuck alone in the control room without a break.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121369922#Comment_121369922

Inishowen is not exactly choked with hedgerows though. You could argue the opposite too - that without clear sight lines people slow down, they're more likely to open up and speed if they think they can see the road ahead.

SuperBowserWorld

People always looking for excuses. Follow the rules and laws of the road. Add common sense and courtesy too if you can manage that. Slow down. Or don't drive.

There are many, many ways to save lives and have a better future for everyone. But people don't care, or think they know better, until life hits them a wallop.

Technology could stop most traffic accidents but people would complain they were being monitored or losing personal freedom. Self drive cars, people would complain they have a right to drive etc etc etc

Instead they'd cut down hedge rows. Here's a thing - cut down the hedge rows but replace them with large wilderness areas with no traffic for wildlife.

But, ... People will still die on the roads. See paragraph 1.

.Donegal.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121340125#Comment_121340125

“Every young lad is to racing cars”

Simply false. I wasn’t nor were the vast majority of the lads in my year. Boy racer problem? absolutely but it’s a lot less than it was 20 years ago.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121368924#Comment_121368924

I drive all over the country, have done for years. It's the lack of skills, basic driving skills & lack of care for anyone else on the road that's evident when you hit Donegal. It's 100% worse than any other county. As I told you already, Cork has a worse record, but it's a lot bigger & there's a lot more people there than there is in Donegal.

I think it's a lack of maturity. Particularly among young to middle aged men in Donegal. I find the fly tipping and general misbehaviour among this group bad to in Donegal. I wish they'd grow up, but it's obviously a cultural thing.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121369922#Comment_121369922

What makes Ireland a stressful country to ride a motorcycle in is the complete lack of consideration / observation of far too many car drivers (smaller must yield to bigger, that's if they see you at all), along with stuff like loose chippings / potholes / diesel / mud and shíte dumped on to the road by builders and farmers with abandon.

Cutting hedgerows so car drivers can see over them would basically mean no hedgerows. If they're that lacking in driving ability / basic cop-on it's unlikely to help anyway.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121370387#Comment_121370387

What you can observe is probably something like 0.00001% of all the journeys made in Donegal in a year. Far too small a sample to arrive at any conclusion. There is recency bias for the basis of this thread starting, and I often observe bad driving in different counties. The actual statistics for deaths does not mark out Donegal as being particularly dangerous.

FishOnABike

Donegal is actually just above middle of the table in terms of road deaths per capita. There's ten counties with more road deaths per capita than Donegal.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/irelands-deadliest-roads-counties-most-dangerous-for-road-users-revealed/42159621.html

Sligo, Monaghan, Limerick, Cavan, Kilkenny, Roscommon, Wexford, Clare, Louth and Longford all have more deaths per capita than Donegal.

magicbastarder

That article only covers 2022 (and not even the full year), and those stats are very prone to statistical fluctuation.

You can see that the previous year, Sligo had been one of the 'safest' counties on the list.

JeffreyEpspeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121347150#Comment_121347150

This country needs vigilantism.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121372417#Comment_121372417

Probably wobbly. What I observe matches the RSA's report that revealed that the counties where speed featured most as a contributory factor in collisions were Donegal (8.4%), Cork (8%), Wexford (8%), Cavan (7%) and Galway (7%) and that 91% of culpable drivers in speed-related collisions were male.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121375428#Comment_121375428

So what about the other 91.6% of collisions? What did you observe about them?

NIMAN

I think someone posted earlier about how we never hear what the cause of road deaths are.

These are all passed off as "terrible accidents" when in fact the vast majority are probably anything but.

Most probably involved alcohol, drugs, excessive speed, dangerous driving, mobile phone use, suicide or bald tyres. But we never hear of any cause, and as a result we are putting our heads in the sand and not addressing the issue.

dxhound2005

Every road death has to have a jury inquest. Every road accident reported to the Gardai should result in some investigation. The fact that the RSA can apparently publish statistics about speed means they must be getting the data from someone? Depending on the circumstances, some cases can result in legal proceedings. Details of inquests and court cases are made public. There is no excuse for people guessing about accidents, when they could make the effort to find out.

Here is a report where bald tyres are highlighted in the cause of the accident.

https://www.donegallive.ie/news/donegal-news/719638/bald-tyres-seriously-inhibited-car-in-which-19-year-old-donegal-man-died.html

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121375513#Comment_121375513

Indeed, good point. However, Donegal drivers, worse in the country. That's why people aren't keen on DL reg plates on a car.

ednwireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121374023#Comment_121374023

so if its donegal, its a statistical anomaly that figures are low cos we know the drivers are bad.

everywhere else is a statistical anomaly because of what ? what a ridiculous statement.

if you don't like driving in donegal stay away.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121375428#Comment_121375428

That comes from an analysis of accidents from 2008 to 2012. Were you observing driving behaviour in Donegal during those years?

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121375945#Comment_121375945

It was still Donegal then. Stats are most likely worse now, you should look them up.