Derry charity launched their road safety initiative to promote safer road usage

A Derry charity officially launched Road Safety Saturday to promote safer road usage.

Life After and the North West Road Safety Partnership have partnered with a number of agencies to host the event on November 16. 

The event will take place in Guildhall Square from 11am until 3pm with re-enactments of road traffic collisions, carried out by our emergency services, to give an insight into the difficult and challenging roles they carry out when dealing with a road traffic collision.

Debbie Mullan of Life After is delighted for the event to deliver this event for the fourth year, particularly leading into road safety week.

She said: “Life After delivers support services to those who have been impacted by a fatal road traffic collision, but road safety awareness and education have always been a huge part of our remit, and we would rather be preventing our membership from growing instead of welcoming new members on an ever-increasing basis.

“Road Safety Saturday will be an opportunity to bring our collective road safety messages to all road users, and we are delighted to have so many agencies attending on the day.

“It is also a great opportunity for members of the public to gain greater understanding of the specialised skills our emergency services undertake on a daily basis. 

“We believe there will be something for everyone on the day of the event, and we look forward to doing what we can to raise awareness and educate around road safety and hopefully help reduce road traffic collisions.”

Life After was founded by Christopher Sherrard after the passing of his father in a road traffic collision, with those who work within the charity having lived experience in losing a loved one due to a road traffic collision.

The charity delivers support services to family and friends of those who have lost their lives through a road traffic collision, while also raising awareness of road safety and driver responsibility.

Mr Sherrard is optimistic about the partnership with many professional agencies and Road Safety Saturday’s official launch this year.

He said: “We are growing now, as we have set up the North West Road Safety Partnership, so we have the right people there to deliver this; we just need the community involved and community involvement from across the board, including local politicians putting that word out there and getting actively involved, to our church groups, to our Men’s Sheds.

“Previously, we have struggled to get the community involved, and community involvement is so important for this message.

“It is very important as we have lost so many on the roads this year, especially in the Derry area and also Donegal, and we have a massive push going forward this year to address the road safety culture we have in our city, which at the moment is not great.

“We want to encourage as many people across the northwest to come up and enjoy a fantastic day, which a lot of our members have worked very hard towards.”

Politicians from various political parties were in attendance at the launch to give their support, including Foyle MLA Mark H. Durkan (SDLP), Councillors Sandra Duffy, Alex Duffy, and Aisling Hutton (Sinn Fein), and Alliance Party representative Rachel Ferguson.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) were in attendance to give their support to the people behind the North West Road Safety Partnership (Life After and Sandy Arthur's Training Services Ltd).

Constable Laura Brown of the PSNI said: “The service of Life After is wonderful. From the idea of setting up the North West Road Safety Partnership, it is a gap that has been in the northwest for so long, so it is an absolutely fantastic privilege and initiative to be involved in.

“We look forward to being involved in Road Safety Saturday.”

A spokesperson for the NIFRS said: “There has been a lot of good work done by Life After and others involved in this partnership over the years.

“I know that there is a period of time between now and the end of the year, but hopefully the current figure of 48 deaths does not reach anywhere near last year’s figure of 71. 

Road Safety Saturday, Christopher Sherrard invited us there two years ago, and it has grown, getting better year upon year, and hopefully that continues this year.”