Why Does Donegal Have So Many Fatal Road Accidents?

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121375978#Comment_121375978

Why would they be worse now?

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121375938#Comment_121375938

i think you're responding to a point i wasn't making. i was responding to the post immediately above mine (which is now the last one on the prvious page) where the poster stated "Sligo, Monaghan, Limerick, Cavan, Kilkenny, Roscommon, Wexford, Clare, Louth and Longford all have more deaths per capita than Donegal."

my point was, Sligo had most deaths per capita in that specific span of 11 months; that that is far from a long term average. i was not stating anything about Donegal specifically.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121375994#Comment_121375994

Old habits die hard and I'm seeing no difference when I visit Donegal. General bad driving, fly tipping, speeding, carelessness, etc... Have you seen a vast improvements?

Tombo2001

I've spent a fair bit of ntime in Donegal but not from there- a few observations:

(i) Main arteries are very good. The N56 has had huge investment, the road improvement works on it seem neverending.

(ii) Back roads - I wouldnt say they are bad roads - they are beautiful to cycle on. But just not suit for driving, or at least for driving any sort of distance. There is little can be done to change that; or to put it differently, as a tax payer I dont support spending gazillions on widening and repaving every little back road in Donegal. In addition, the landscape is a lot more undulating than in other parts of the country, more sharp bends, rises, dips.

(iii) What doesnt help AT ALL is the ridiculosuly high speed limits on these back roads. Many of them are 80k or 100k routes when they should be 50k limit at the very most. To put it differently, dangerous driving is legal.

(iii) the drivers sure like to overtake.

(iv) It certainly has a rep. Its not the worst place statistically for fatal accidents - which in the real world means it actually isnt the worst place, whatever ones opinion might be. But its not the best either, by a long shot. The driving culture could certainly improve.

(v) its a not the biggest county, but maybe the hardest to drive around. For example Carndonagh to Glencolmcille would take two and a half hours, without ever leaving donegal. Is there a longer drive between two towns in the same county? Not sure this relates.

(v) the one exception to this is Tory Island, which has the safest drivers anywhere in ireland.

dxhound2005

If those limits are ridiculous in Donegal, then they would be equally ridiculous in other counties. Which they are. I drove out from a narrow road which had a 80 limit on to a much wider road which had a 50 in Co Louth. There could be changes on the way for the whole country, with proposals to bring 80 down to 60 generally.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121376184#Comment_121376184

Completely agree, with caveat around my comment which I think is true that the landscape in Donegal is more undulating than elsewhere. Louth is largely flat and therefore more likely to have straight roads. Driving in donegal can be a like a ride in Tayto Park sometimes, up and down, up and down.

K-9

Here's an article about the state of roads:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30974982.html

Donegal and Mayo have the highest percentages requiring total reconstruction and high on roads needing structural repair, so could be something going on there.

Hotblack Desiato

I think the attitude of many Donegal drivers towards number plates is a good indicator of their attitude towards road traffic law in general.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121376560#Comment_121376560

Hmm - kind of what I said earlier - I dont want my tax payers money invested in 'total reconstruction' of every back road in Donegal which get at best a few dozen cars each hour. On a per traffic or per volume basis - I'd have a fairly strong view that roads in Dublin are much more in need of investment.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121376585#Comment_121376585

I was just typing about this, number plates with awful serifed fonts, people with identity issues putting yellow coloured rear plates on ROI cars and butchering perfectly engineered (by professionals) suspension systems so not only do the wheels not fit the arches properly but the entire cars performance is diminished. So not only are the drivers deplorable, the cars are too!

K-9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121376598#Comment_121376598

It is an explanation for higher road deaths on a thread about Donegal road deaths.

How much is spent on actually repairing them is a different matter.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121376767#Comment_121376767

Yes thats fair.

Ave Sodalis

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

On our road, a rise had sunk at the top causing a major dip on top of a rise. Two more areas sunk directly after it. If you hit the rise at any speed faster that 30mph, you will get flung around the road and because of the way it is, you would barely notice it until you hit it. It has been like that for ages. Only recently, the council put a sign on either side of it saying "slow, danger ahead". Those signs will probably sit there for another couple of years.

Likewise we had another part of a road sink. Again, difficult to see because there is no defined edge (like a pothole would) and people generally didn't realise how deep it was until they were in it. It was just before a bend and people had started going around it to save their bumpers/shocks, or else you'd have to a near stop and go through it in 1st gear. The council were doing works that corner and put the traffic lights in a way that made everyone go into it. Then I guess their own lorries went into it, so they fixed it.

Both of those sunken parts of the road appeared within a day or two. Neither were/are very obvious from inside the car. Thankfully neither have caused any major accidents except damage to some cars, but they very well could have.

Other intelligent decisions that have been made include taking the grass verge away on a very steep hill to "widen" it, putting in sharp and deep drains instead, then painting lines (in the middle of nowhere) that make the road more narrow than it was before. We've also had a section of road widened and they've left a tree in the wider part of the road.

JeffreyEpspeen

Appointment in Donegal Town this morning. On the way up and way back I had people right up my hole before dangerously overtaking. I drive a fair bit all over and it's odd you'd see such dangerous driving once in an average week let alone twice in the space of an hour.

Looked over at one lad overtaking me expecting to see the usual scrawny potato headed teen and it was a bearded, middle-aged man with grey hair!

If there was a way to get these boys outside of a car without having them crash into the back of mine or me having to break the rules of the road going after them I wonder how brave most of them would be?

Remember driving in Glendalough and had a young lad stupid enough to tailgate me with full lights on on a narrow country road with literally no space to overtake and nowhere to go. Almost had him and the girl he was with in tears when I stopped and got out of the car. Was awhile before there was another car behind me afterwards.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121381216#Comment_121381216

Did you shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die?

JeffreyEpspeen

I've said my piece, Chrissy.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121381216#Comment_121381216

You were an outsider driving in the county? Some or all of the bad drivers you saw could have been outsiders as well. NI drivers have a bad reputation when they are in the Republic. It sounds as if the overaker wasn't doing 120 when you could work out his age and notice the beard.

Hotblack Desiato

It sounds as if the overaker wasn't doing 120 when you could work out his age and notice the beard.

Well that makes it all OK... 🙄

AyeGer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121376598#Comment_121376598

I’m my experience the road surfaces aren’t that bad. It’s the lack of traffic cops anywhere that allows the speeding, aggressive and reckless driving to go unpunished.

AyeGer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121376607#Comment_121376607

I don’t understand what the the yellow back plate is all about on southern cars when it is not the standard here. Saying that though I do think it’s a good idea.

I wouldn’t put one on my car unless it was the norm though.

JeffreyEpspeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121382374#Comment_121382374

He was doing 140, at least, and overtaking when other cars were approaching.

There was another car doing the same speed directly behind him performing the same dangerous overtaking manoeuvres.

I was wondering if they were road raging or racing each other.

You'd sadly expect it from young lads but this guy was closer to pension age than this teens.

Of course if you gave the guards dash cam footage of this they'd do **** all with it.

A young boy after dying in Donegal recently because of shite like this. Lads like this should be battered.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121387324#Comment_121387324

Thats fair. If anything, good surfaces on roads often leads to much faster driving.

Hotblack Desiato

In Donegal, it's not just the motorists...

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/11/20/man-who-was-drunk-in-charge-of-horse-and-cart-fined-250/

A man who galloped to his local shop on a horse and cart to get cigarettes while drunk has been fined €250.

Danny Connors (49) of Canal Road, Letterkenny, Co Donegal, had been ordered last April to complete a safer driving course after he appeared before the local District Court having being stopped while drunk in charge of a horse and cart at 8.55am on June 20th, 2021.

The court heard he was 3½ times over the drink-driving limit.

Gardaí observed him swaying on the road, Sgt Gerard Dalton said. When ordered to stop he told gardaí, “F**k off, I’m not stopping.” When eventually stopped, he was arrested for an offence contrary to section 6 of the Road Traffic Act, 2010.