Why Does Donegal Have So Many Fatal Road Accidents?

Ah sure, it's a bit of a little rebellious streak from the driver in his late teens who mowed down two people on the main street at 3am, killing one of them, what are you moaning about?

Excessive speed from all ages and genders even middle aged mammy's with kids on board sadly and then this mad need to get past no matter what even if traffic is near the speed limit is a big factor. The roads are fine if people had respect for other road users and used some cop on and paid attention.

No Gardai out doing their job. If they actually manage to roll up to work their shift, it is spent drinking tea eating biccies and watching cartoons in the safety of the Garda Barracks. No one sees or know who their local Garda is.

Underage Kids out on the road in quads and old cars with hoodies and snoods to hide themselves, no insurance, driving lessons, driving licence, tax or NCT. Again excessive speed, donuts and general tearing around towns and countryside with no gardai to be seen. The Gardai are always very vocal afterwards looking for dash cam footage and reports from anyone that can help them do their job.

The Manager/Super of An Garda Síochana needs to set out a rota for all Garda stations in the county to ensure every Garda gets themselves out on the road and visible and this needs to be kept a very close eye on to see who the lazy unproductive members are and rehabilitate and retrain them if needs.

Just my tuppence.

There’s a level of tolerance of lawlessness in Donegal that is reflected in the culture of boy racers speeding around the dangerous roads. Also reflected in the serious problem of illegal dumping. My guess is the culture is to do with proximity to the border and the distance from Dublin

in November 2022 it was reported that in Donegal there were * drum roll *…27 members of An Garda Siochana assigned to Garda Traffic. That’s a county of approximately 4860 square kilometres in size. You don’t have to be an expert in roads policing to realise that that’s not going to be very impactful….or deterring….You’d probably be lucky to get 4 on shift for a whole county when you factor in illness, holiday, scheduled time off..

THat makes my point, went out of his way to find an old story about a car crash to have a dig at Donegal, but in the meantime other counties had road deaths but no posts about them.

Yeah, it's a harmless thing to do, to be honest. It is spoken here like the crime of the century, an attempt to paint the small number that do it as lawless, and that means the county is. There is a huge amount of NI traffic up here with very little enforcement. As a county, Donegal is not the worst in fatal road accidents but has the reputation of being the worst, which is unfortunate because it isn't.

Years of underinvestment in road engineering, in particular, is a major part, access to appropriate and timely medical assistance, (lack of ambulances and lack of services in main hospital) lack of enforcement, (little Gardai numbers for the county) road surfaces and hilly and narrow, twisty roads. Lack of public transport or non-existent in many areas. Nothing for people to do in towns or villages, especially for teens and young men and woman, literally no investment in community services. Boredom, on top of that and some bad decisions, you have younger people involved in terrible incidents. If all the rest was somehow solved and the last part was the people making the poor decisions, then yeah.

Who made that statement?

So, you just made it up and are surreptitiously attributing it to a swathe of non-existent commentators on Facebook. Thanks.

You're dead right, reg plates are the last of the things to be worried about, but it does give a general gist of attitudes.

The roads are what they are, people have to learn to drive to the conditions. This is rural Ireland at the end of the day; it was never going to have city level services, and the planning hasn’t helped either. It’s all selfish one off housing, miles between places, diminished communities, and that’s a big part of where the boredom comes from. Kids and teenagers are stuck in the middle of nowhere, isolated with nothing to do. And to be fair, Donegal people are car obsessed, they’ll drive everywhere and won’t look near public transport even if was there. I’ve seen the dreadful driving and fly tipping up there myself, young and old alike.

It’s not the place, it’s how people choose to handle it and how people treat it.

Neglected? Donegal is the second highest per capita recipient of social benefits in Ireland.

Dear god.

A fact you don't like is immature, childish and disingenuous 🙄

Blaming the roads is a cop-out. Excessive speed for the conditions is the fault of the driver not the road.

I've been driving in Donegal for the guts of 30 years and have never put my car in the ditch.

Nor have any of my family or friends.

No cars have ever been discovered in ditches in any of the other 31 counties?

Just a Donegal thing?

The irrational dislike of Donegal. Did a DL girl turn down your advances or something?

Its also completely inaccurate. The largest amount of social benefits nationwide are pensions - and Donegal average age is on the high side.

Unless John Rambo believes old people aren't entitled to pensions?

Poor driving standards. Too many boy racers etc.