Road safety pleas - NIFRS

As it is revealed that 56 people tragically lost their lives on Northern Ireland’s roads in 2013 Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) is now echoing road safety pleas to encourage road users to ‘Share the Road to Zero’ and aim towards zero road deaths in the province in the year ahead.

Dale Ashford, Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service has urged motorists to take care on the roads.

“It’s an unspeakable tragedy that 56 people died on our roads in 2013 (Provisional PSNI Road Death Statistics) - one death on our road is one too many.

“Last year we attended 695 road traffic collisions and rescued 542 people.

“Unfortunately in 2013 our Firefighters, along with our colleagues in the Emergency Services, witnessed all too often the carnage on our roads and the lives completely destroyed caused by irresponsible road user behaviour.

“Throughout the year we have worked hard with our road safety partners, Department of the Environment (DoE) Road Safety, the Police and Ambulance Service to improve road user behaviour to help reduce the number of road traffic collisions occurring and the number of people killed and seriously injured as a result.

“We must do all we can to ease the pain, loss and suffering to individuals, families and communities caused by road traffic collisions.

“We are all responsible for road safety – we all have a responsibility to ‘Share the Road to Zero’ and we simply must all aspire towards Zero road deaths in the year ahead.”

For more information you are asked to log onto the website Share the Road to Zero at www.sharetheroadtozero.com