Judge calls on council to fix lethal junction after near fatal accident
The dangerous junction at Redwells between Rathvilly and Baltinglass
A NEAR fatal accident in which a driver sustained serious head injuries last week prompted Judge Geraldine Carthy to appeal to Wicklow County Council to improve a junction on a road between Rathvilly and Baltinglass.
After hearing a court case in which a driver was almost killed as a result of a car crash, Judge Carthy said that she was recommending that the state should attend to the Redwells crossroads immediately to make it safe because the condition that it’s currently in was “negligent”.
She asked Inspector Conor Nolan to bring the matter to the attention of the council “forthwith”, while she also asked to highlight the case so as to inform road users of the dangerous junction.
“We’re very fortunate that there were no fatalities (in the accident),” she said.
The accident involved two cars, where one driver, Alan Davis, was travelling along the Rathvilly to Baltinglass road on 21 October 2023. His car was hit on the left-hand side by another car, driven by Caroline Leonard (42), at a four crossroads in Redwells, about three kilometres outside Baltinglass.
Judge Carthy heard that Mr Davis was dazed after the accident and that Ms Leonard was lying on the ground, bleeding profusely from her head.
Mr Davis said that he lived locally and so was very familiar with the junction, which he described as “notoriously dangerous”. He added that driving conditions were good that day but that local people knew always to be cautious when driving there.
A witness, Brian McDaid, who lives beside the junction, gave evidence of how he heard but didn’t see the crash when it happened. He said that two young men knocked on his door and told them that an accident had happened and that, when he went to the crossroads, he saw a woman lying on the ground, bleeding from her head.
He said that he used a scarf to try to stem the blood and called the emergency services, telling them that he thought that the woman was dead. He continued that a paramedic who happened to be driving by stopped and helped him before the fire brigade arrived.
Mr McDaid also described the junction as “dangerous” because there are no road markings and said that drivers have to move beyond a Stop sign to see if there is any oncoming traffic. “You have to edge out onto the road a fair bit to see what’s coming,” said Mr McDaid.
Investigating garda Sergeant Paul Daly told the judge that when he saw the situation, he immediately treated the scene as a fatal road accident. He said that the fire service told him that Ms Leonard had suffered a serious head injury, and it was likely that she was bleeding internally as well.
Sgt Daly agreed with the other witnesses that the crossroads was dangerous because it was a staggered junction with very poor sightlines for drivers coming from the lesser road, forcing them to drive beyond the Stop sign to check for any traffic. He told Judge Carthy that after 27 years of experience as a garda, he was sure that Ms Leonard had stopped or slowed down significantly at the Stop sign before edging onto the road, because if she hadn’t been driving slowly, he was certain that it would have resulted in “a double fatality”.
He also said that Ms Leonard had been seriously injured in the crash and hasn’t been able to work since.
He continued that he had searched for the two young men who had alerted Mr McDaid to the crash and had even visited local schools, appealing for them to come forward, but to no avail.
As a result of the accident, Ms Leonard of Lisbaun, Kiltoon, Athlone, Co Roscommon was summoned to court on a careless driving charge, which she denied.
Her solicitor, Stephen Wilson, handed into court a report by Denis Woods Associates, a forensic engineering company. The report found that the Stop sign is set back four metres from the junction so that drivers have to move beyond the sign in order to see and that it was difficult for drivers to judge precisely where the intersecting road began.
The report also found that Ms Leonard’s view of any oncoming traffic would have been severely restricted by trees and that she would have had to have slowed down significantly or stopped completely at the Stop sign before moving forward into the junction.
On hearing the evidence, Judge Carthy dismissed the careless driving charge against Ms Leonard and recommended that the local authority should address the junction and make it safe as soon as possible.
