Drogheda Ógra Urge Safety on the Roads

Over the October bank holiday weekend Ògra Shinn Fein took to the streets of Drogheda, to distribute leaflets as part of the Moilligh Sìos road safety campaign. The leaflet drop was well attended by local members of Ògra Shinn Fein, as well as distributing leaflets Ògra Shinn Fein activists discussed a number of issues with members of the public. Ironically and tragically over the course of the October Bank holiday 7 people died on our roads.

Speaking on the day Aìne Downes went on to say.

"On the 9th of October the European Road Safety Council released the results of a new study which found, that Ireland was ranked 12th out of the 29 member states with the highest amount of fatalities. In 2001 Ireland was ranked at 16, this increase in road fatalities is unacceptable. The survey also indicates that Ireland is in 10th place in ability to reduce road deaths, This means that it is not just the issue of speed that needs to be tackled, but the actual infrastructure to improve the conditions of Irish roads must, be made available..."

"The Survey released, also praised 3 countries France, Luxembourg, and Portugal. In the last 5 years these countries have reduced the number of fatal road accidents by 40%. Portugal has reduced the volume of traffic on its rural roads by building improved relief roads, which help deal with the increasing amount of vehicles on all our roads. France now has 1100 speed cameras in operation at any 1 given time, All though most motorist would not be in favour of the introduction of this amount of speed cameras over night, the results speak for themselves and in this case the end justifies the means."

"Luxembourg made the issue of blood alcohol levels an election issue. Luxembourg lowered its legal blood alcohol level from 0.5mg to0.2mg. Currently the legal limit in Ireland is 0.8mg. The examples shown by these 3 countries show that there is a lot more the Irish government could be doing to tackle this issue which is dearly costing lives daily. Ògra Shinn Féin is not going to give in, and we will continue campaign on the issue for as long as it takes."