There’s a plan to reduce the number of deaths on Kerry roads by 15% next year.
It’s among a number of targets in the Road Safety Action Plan for County Kerry 2024.
This plan was presented at the monthly meeting of Kerry County Council and it was adopted by councillors.
There’ve been eight fatalities on Kerry roads so far this year; that’s up on all of last year when seven people lost their lives on the county’s roads.
The highest number of fatalities in Kerry occurred in 2014 when 14 people died due to road traffic collisions, while the lowest number of fatalities occurred in the county in 2018 when three people died on our roads.
Local targets have been developed, alongside national targets, in a bid to reduce the number of people dying in road traffic collisions.
In Kerry next year, there’s a target to reduce the number of deaths on the county’s roads by 15% which would be five deaths or lower, while it’s hoped the number of serious injury collisions in the county can be reduced by 10% to 41 or lower next year.
By 2030, in Kerry the target is to have a 50% reduction in fatalities on Kerry’s roads, which would be three or lower.
73 actions have also been established and these include appointing a road safety officer to champion road safety campaigns and projects, to undertake a speed limit review for Kerry and to extend the number of 30km/h speed limit zones in high-risk locations including school zones for vulnerable road users.
Kerry County Councillors were very much in favour of having a road safety officer appointed and many called for this officer to examine sites where there have been numerous collisions, while a number of councillors also called for better education for young people about road safety.
The issue of deer on our roads was also raised with Independent councillor Johnny Healy-Rae stating he’d seen 22 deer killed on the Kilgarvan to Killorglin road recently which he said meant there were 22 accidents involving deer on that road alone; he also referenced a recent accident involving a deer that left a woman with life-changing injuries.
