Limerick road victims to be remembered this Sunday
AHEAD of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the head of the Roads Policing Unit in Limerick is appealing to motorists to take care when driving over the winter.
Thirteen people have died in 12 fatal collisions in the Limerick garda division so far in 2022 - up from four during all of 2021.
A number of remembrance events will take place across the country this Sunday and Inspector Padraig Sutton says his thoughts are with the families of those who have died and the emergency services who attended the scenes of the collisions.
"It's World Remembrance Day this Sunday, there are events all over the country to mark and remember those people who we have lost since records began and to also remember those who have been seriously injured - unfortunately, the reality is none of us are too far away from knowing or being close to someone of God forbid being involved in a serious collision," he said.
Almost 25,000 people have died on roads since Ireland began recording fatalities in 1959 and since 1977, when injury records began, more than 86,000 people have been seriously injured.
Insp Sutton has also paid tribute to the emergency service workers who have attended the scenes of fatal and serious collisions over the years.
"For each road death that we have, we have a family liaison officer to help with the (bereaved) family and on average if you look at any given collision you will have the National Ambulance Service, you will have the fire service and up to 10 or 15 of our own people who attend to try and ascertain what happened," he told Limerick Today on Live 95.
"This has been a particularly poor year for Limerick and we are really concerned about but we are getting better when compared to the 1990s and 2000s when road deaths were really high but, yeah, it has been a really difficult year for us (in Limerick)", he added.