Serious action on road safety education needed

Unless some very serious action is taken with road safety education and Garda enforcement, we will see more deaths on our roads, a local senator has warned.

Senator Linda Nelson Murray said driver education had to be in every single school in the country. "We need to educate everybody about safety on our roads and about the impact when something goes wrong."

"Recently in the Seanad, Fine Gael tabled a motion on road safety. Many of us spoke on it, including me, and it of course had cross-party support. Little did I think that, four days later, a 16-year-old girl, Mia Lily Keogh O'Keeffe, would be tragically killed in my hometown of Navan.

"As the mother of two young girls, I simply cannot imagine what that family are going through. Mia Lily was struck at a pedestrian crossing on the Slane Road in Navan. It was a hit and run. Her dog, Bowie, was also killed. "These deaths are absolutely devastating. Over the weekend, there were seven road deaths across the island of Ireland. Ireland has a road safety strategy aiming to halve road deaths by 2030, and has recently introduced lower speed limits on local and urban roads as part of this, but unless some very serious action is taken now with road safety education and Garda enforcement, we will see more deaths on our roads."

She pointed out that Lithuania runs a year-long learn to drive programme for high-schoolers in collaboration with police and paramedics.

"Japan utilises kids' driving parks, where children learn traffic rules and receive a licence after a practical course. "In Poland and Hungary, kids practise in driving safety parks. In the Netherlands, road safety is a compulsory part of the primary curriculum, often integrated into world orientation subjects. A signature feature there is the national traffic test for seventh and eighth-graders, which includes both a theory exam and a practical cycling test on a preset route."

She commended the Road Safety Authority on helping schools to educate primary and secondary students. "But I question whether this is done in every single school. Do our teenagers get real experience of driver and pedestrian safety? I see on the Road Safety Authority's website that it mentions that the junior cycle, which is for ages 12 to 16, on education and road safety was to commence in September 2025. I can only assume it has not because the website has not been updated since.

"This cannot be in a few, a handful or some schools; it has to be in every single school in the country. We need to educate everybody about safety on our roads and about the impact when something goes wrong. That girl's family will never get over this and I imagine the family of the young man who knocked her down will never get over this either. No statistic can capture the human cost of these crashes. Each young life lost, like Mia Lily's, is a reminder that preventing road deaths is not just about data. It is about communities feeling safe to walk, cycle and to live without fear," she said.