Roadsafe Roadshow delivers a hard-hitting safety message

To date in 2018, six people have lost their lives on our roads, a reduction of four fatalities for this time last year.

The Roadsafe Roadshow is hoping to deter young people from falling into this category going forward by showing them the realistic impacts of driving with speed and the damage it can cause.

The Roadsafe Roadshow was aimed primarily at transition year students in secondary schools and is based on an award winning format and depicts graphically how a night out, can end in tragedy.

This was South Dublin’s second time to host the Road Safety Roadshow and according to Road Safety Officer Declan Keogh, “the primary objective is to bring students face to face with the harsh reality of the causes, consequences and long term after-effects of road collisions which claim so many lives and injure so many hundreds of people every year.”

“Seven people lost their lives on South County Dublin roads last year, and while the same year saw a 15% marked reduction in road fatalities nationally, this is still no use to the families of those seven people who lost their lives, but each road death makes up an important element of road statistics and each fatality tells its own story,” said Declan

Almost three-hundred transition year students from secondary schools in South Dublin attended the hard-hitting roadshow.

They heard first hand, from the first responders of road traffic collisions what it’s like to attend the scene of a crash, what it’s like hearing those aching screams from the injured, the anguish from the parents and the eerie sound of silence at the scene of a fatal crash.

Dublin Fire Brigade, the National Ambulance Service, the gardaí and an A&E Consultant play key roles in the roadshow, they tell their own stories around one particular fatal collision.

Garda David Barron recalled calling to a family home at 4.30 one morning. “This is the worst part of this job. They are woken by the garda car in the driveway. As we walk up to the door in the middle of the night, a light comes on in the porch, and the look from their faces says it all. They know it’s the worst news ever. I could tell the parents were hearing me, but what I was saying wasn’t registering. The Mother falls to her knees, the father stands numb.”

Advanced Paramedic Tony Kelly recalls: “As I got closer to the scene I could see the absolute carnage ahead. I knew myself, this is bad. Among the debris I could see a girl on the ground, lying motionless, silent. From the impact of the crash, she was dead, she was gone.”

Dressed in his fire-fighting gear, addressing the students, Dublin Fire Brigade’s Sub Officer Darren O’’Connor said he was in the fire brigade for nine months before he encountered his first fatal collision.

“At first I didn’t know where the driver was, I didn’t see him in the seat, I thought he had been thrown from the car but when I took a closer look, he was there, trapped under the foot-well.

“Three others were dead too. I remember heading back to the station in a fire engine that fell silent of banter, and thinking to myself, there’s no goodbyes, no dignity, no comeback from these collisions.”

Declan Keogh said these graphic shows are crucial to breakdown the ‘hardened’ personalities of today’s teenagers who are tomorrows drivers.

“We make absolutely no apology for showing these graphic images, allowing these heart-breaking stories of experiences from firefighters, ambulance paramedics and the gardai, because let’s face it, these are the people who are faced with horrific scenes everyday of their working lives and to hear their own personal experiences, it really does make you think about your actions on the road, either as a driver, passenger, pedestrian or whatever.”

The show culminates in a presentation which brought many students to tears with the heart wrenching story from Leo Lieghio, the father of 16-year-old Marsia from Clondalkin who was knocked down by a hit and run driver on the Fonthill Road over 12 years ago.

Mr Lieghio fought hard to hold back tears as he described his beautiful daughter to hundreds of teenage students and of how he heard the news that Marsia was killed.

During his talk, he paused for a moment to compose himself before telling the teenagers, ‘as a parent I was supposed to mind her, take care of her and keep her safe but I failed, and now all I can think about are the memories we shared, and the future we lost with her.”