'You may never get a second chance'

The news was revealed at a recent District Policing Partnership meeting when the Head of Road Policing NI visited Riada House.

Addressing DPP representatives, councillors and the general public including members of the Ballymoney Youth Council, Superintendent Muir Clarke said: “In November I did a talk to the Policing Board about Roads Policing and concluded by extending an invite to any District Policing Partnership to come and speak to them.

“Ballymoney was the first to take up my offer and they were the only DPP.”

Having played a number of shocking videos, the police chief outlined that 39,051 people lost their lives on Europe’s roads and 2,538 on Great Britain’s roads in 2008. He also disclosed that in 2009 115 people died on Northern Ireland roads with 757 people seriously injured.

He then addressed the 194.6m costs of road deaths to the Northern Ireland economy, adding: “You can not put a price on someone’s grief.”

He continued: “So far 12 people have died on our roads this year. This is down on last year which saw 28, a reduction of 14, however I do not feel good as a person to talk about this in statistics. Twelve deaths is still 12 too many.”

Last year the H District, which includes Ballymoney and Moyle, witnessed 29 fatalities with 10 in Coleraine, six in Moyle, four in Ballymena, six in Larne and three in Ballymoney.

“We have seen 27 serious road crashes in the H District so far this year, which is worrying,” he warned.

“It seems the main causation factors in incidents are excess speed, impairment through alcohol and careless or dangerous driving.

“Speed is the biggest killer in Northern Ireland and officers carried out 33,000 speed detections last year.

“Tonight (Wednesday) on my way to this meeting I stopped two motorists, one on the M2 and one on the dual carriageway from Ballymena to Ballymoney, for speeding and that’s why I was late. People just don’t seem to be listening.”

The superintendent then highlighted his plans for the future including reviewing resources and targeting offence types.

He said: “64% of road deaths are in rural areas so I aim to increase resources there. Motorways seem to be the safest roads, so I aim to take 30% of resources off there.

“I also plan to target a campaign at the six main offence types - speed, drink driving, not wearing seatbelts, using mobile phones, careless and dangerous driving and studying disqualified drivers.”

Addressing the Ballymoney Youth Council in the audience, he hit out: “One of my very big concerns is the number of people who text whilst driving. A staggering 48% of 18 to 24-year-olds in Northern Ireland admitted to texting and driving at the same time.

“This is a growing problem in Ballymoney, Moyle, the H District and Northern Ireland as a whole. Studies have revealed that those texting whilst driving are less attentive then those over the drink driving limit.

“So please, please stop - pay attention to the road as you may never ever get a second chance.”

Before opening the floor, the Superintendent Clarke invited DPP members to think about how they could ‘help improve road safety and reduce incidents’.