Ciaran Cannon: Every 48 hours someone dies on Irish roads – not because they failed_ but because we did

Ciaran Cannon: Every 48 hours someone dies on Irish roads – not because they failed_ but because we did

On average, someone dies on Irish roads every 48 hours, and many more suffer life-changing injuries.

We try to rationalise road deaths by imagining them as freak accidents

— We had 1,046 gardai in our roads policing units in 2009. Today we have just 625. On average, someone dies on Irish roads every 48 hours, and many more suffer life-changing injuries. We try to rationalise these tragic losses by imagining them as freak accidents, a break from the norm, perhaps the result of a moment of carelessness. But we’ve never looked to another truth, never acknowledged that Irish roads are still engineered, policed and leg…