Why Does Donegal Have So Many Fatal Road Accidents?

Again, that's every county.

I have witnessed bad driving and biy racers in every county I have ever been in.

I find it more in your face in Donegal and I find older drivers to be pretty irresponsible. We used to stay in an area in Donegal and gave up on letting the kids walk to the beach because of one mouth breather that insisted on tearing up and down the road, doing burnouts and doughnuts. He was in his thirties.

I constantly hear town people talking about how spread out Donegal is . Most of it is Country side not town . Dubs don’t seem to understand that there is no functioning public transport in rural Ireland .so to get from A to B driving is THE only option . Though that’s not to say that Donegal lads don’t pull every trick in the book . I have posted before how I got rear ended in Monaghan . The car that hit me was driven by a Dundalk girl coming from Donegal , with her Donegal boyfriend . Both cars had the same DL reg . Typical border behaviour .

But if you’re a farmer milking 30/40 cows , there’s not much room in a 1/4 acre semi to work . And of course siblings will need a site . So driving is the only option . Not everyone wants to live in a town . Should PP be refused , and make the people move to a town / village . That destroys communities .

Towns and villages don’t destroy communities, they create and sustain them. No question that farmers need to live on site for their work, that’s not in dispute. But I’m talking specifically about one off housing that isn’t linked to farms or essential rural activity. That’s a very different issue and it's a major part of the problem.

In fact, I’d argue that farmers themselves would be better off without scattered one off housing! They’d enjoy more peace and quiet, fewer conflicts, less traffic on narrow roads, and less strain on infrastructure!

I know, it's a mess.

Again, not a Donegal only issue.

You could get photos of housing like that from every county in Ireland.

This lad had a checkered past shall we say. He was adopted from Eastern Europe as a baby. Nuture v nature doesn't get a look in here.

I was looking for stats on fatal road accidents in Ireland and the CSO had one for 2023. It appears that 5 counties had more fatalities than Donegal in that year: Dublin (15), Cork (15), Tipperary (16), Galway (12), Roscommon (12) with Kerry and Donegal recording 10 fatalities each.

The RSA published an article which said that Dublin (23), Cork (19), Mayo (19) and Donegal (17) recorded the highest number of fatalities in 2024.

Why focus on one county, Donegal, and not cast an eye on the others? What makes their road fatalities different?

https://www.rsa.ie/news-events/news/details/2025/01/01/road-deaths-in-2024-drop-by-4

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/hubs/p-transo/transporthub/roadsafety/fatalities/

An absolutely shocking read, 58 metres he propelled the poor boy. And had already been fined for driving at 160kmh. Goes to show no matter what advertising, education or enforcement is applied people like him will continue to be on our roads because their behaviour is sourced from aspects immune to those parameters.

Quite telling he was adopted, this behaviour doesn't happen overnight, he's been getting away with stuff from a young age.

Yes a Dundalk , person . Driving a car with fake plates . Whether you can call a Dundalk woman a lady ? Not quite in my experience . And just for reference , I’m from Monaghan so I know well the strokes pulled . I’ve been there and done that .

Absolutely. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be ignored as a contributing factor to road deaths in Donegal and other counties.

Ridiculous that some poster are trying to use a scumbag lunatic from Mullaghmore (that's Co. Sligo for the geographically challenged) to have a go at Donegal and Donegal drivers.

That individual should have been in prison - he got a lenient 2 year custodial sentence in 2019 for a horrific stabbing incident.

This is a scumbag issue, not a road safety issue. And as can be seen from the table posted and in spite of the rallying culture and low population density, Donegal is often better or no worse than other border and rural counties for road deaths.