M50 Motorists Endangering Lives
M50 Motorists Endangering Lives
Twelve motorists have been prosecuted for their 'unsafe' behaviour, according to gardai, for filming the aftermath of a fatal traffic crash.
Why these individuals wanted to document such a tragic scene is unknown but fines were imposed on all the drivers for using their mobile phones to film the crash scene.
Gardai have said that these prosecutions should serve as a warning to all motorists and a reminder to all road users that our behaviour can impinge on the safety others when coming across road traffic collisions and other incidents.
Gardai, fire chiefs, Dublin City Council, the HSE ambulance service, and the Transport Institute of Ireland appealed to Irish motorists to exercise common sense when out on the roads. In a special appeal, they implored motorists to exhibit safer behaviour and consideration following crashes on busy roads.
The M50 has increasingly become extremely vulnerable to traffic jams and long delays. If for any reason there is an incident on the motorway it can cause huge traffic chaos. Even a single car breakdown, blocking only 1 lane has huge traffic implications that can last for hours.
If there happens to be a serious collision, our busy roadways can become deadlocked extremely fast and this can be a huge temptation for some drivers to engage in unsafe behaviours such as filming the traffic collision. The call to all motorists from the authorities is that all road users should do their part to lessen traffic hold-ups.
Garda Superintendents Tom Murphy and John Ferris spoke of serious tailbacks on busy roads caused by motorists who want to slow down to watch or film the aftermath of road accidents.
In 2015 there was a very serious incident on the M50 in which traffic flows in the opposite direction should not have been affected but several motorists driving past decided to slow down to film the scene which in itself is very dangerous and unsafe road behaviour.
“Twelve motorists used their mobile phones to film the scene as they drove past and all of them were prosecuted later,” said Supt Ferris. The call has gone out for all road users to exercise greater responsibility during long traffic delays due to road collisions. It is also very important that hard shoulders remain clear so emergency service vehicles. Fines of €80 and two penalty points can be imposed on your licence for these offences.
Emergency services want all motorists to exercise responsibility during long traffic delays caused by collisions. Drivers must keep clear of all hard shoulders to allow emergency vehicles to pass.
A driver averting attention from their driving even for a split second can themselves be the cause of a collision when a vehicle in front suddenly slows down.
The Gardaí now have a new scene-of-accident scanner which can dramatically cut down the time that a road must remain closed after an accident. While traditional crash scene investigation measures can take hours, a new three-dimensional scanner can map the scene in a fraction of the time.
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Justin Kavanagh
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