Highlighting Road Safety In Our Community - Part 1

Tuesday 9 May 2017

I live in a really great community.  My parents are both native to Ballon. They went to school in here, my siblings and I and now I’m raising my own children here.  I walked and cycled everywhere as a child and teenager.  There was a group of us friends and we were never off our bikes, going between one house or another, cycling to the shops etc. When our legs didn’t feel like walking, our two wheels carried us, and sometimes carried two of us. But that was then and this is now and the me that sometimes cycled home from school then, would not dream of allowing my children out on that same road.  Ballon is now up there as one of the biggest villages in Carlow and between census 2006 and 2011, the population of the area grew by 14%.  The volume of traffic on the N80 has grown massively, the speed at which that traffic flows has increased dangerously and the poor driver behaviours such as mobile phone use are evident every single day of the week. 

According to figures from the Road Safety Authority there were 187 fatalities on our countries roads in 2016.  Thankfully our village is not amongst these statistics for last year but we have seen more than our share of tragedies over the years and if the issues of speed and safety through the village are not addressed as an immediate concern, we will not be spared for much longer.

Currently the only safety measure through the village, aside from the speed limit, which is rarely adhered to, is our school crossing, which is patrolled by the School Traffic Warden, who does a remarkable job, in difficult circumstances.  The role of the warden is to ensure that school children cross public roads on their way to and from school safely.  School Traffic Wardens wear a distinctive high-visability coat and carry a distinctive sign.  They have the power to exhibit the sign thereby requiring all traffic to stop and remain stopped to enable school children to cross the road in safety.  Traffic must remain stopped as long as the warden exhibits the sign.

On more than one occasion lately I have remarked to our lovely warden Catherine, that she is taking her life into her own hands.  And unthinkably that becomes more of a reality every day.  Recently a truck went straight through the crossing as Catherine was on it, wielding her sign, a mother and children were about to step onto the crossing.  The driver laughed and waved and continued on his merry way without a second thought for the lives he put at risk. Countless episodes like this are happening every day and it’s simply not good enough, not for our village, not for Catherine and certainly not for the lives of our precious children. 

After the above incident, a number of concerned parents highlighted the issue with the Road Safety Officer within Carlow County Council, who sent the guards out to assess the situation and the chief engineer is also looking at what options are available.