Injury Compensation News

The family of Bridget O’Reilly of Ballybeg, Waterford, has been awarded €506,000 in damages at the High Court following her death while a passenger in a car accident with a drunk driver. Mrs O’Reilly was aged 42 when she was killed, leaving behind a husband and nine children, the youngest of which was only 3 years old.

The case was taken by Mrs O’Reilly’s husband, Edward O’Reilly, against the drunken driver of the car, Frank Prendergast of Tallaght, County Dublin, and the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland. The car crash happened at Powerstown, County Carlow in July 2002 and Mrs O’Reilly died a few weeks later in hospital.

Mrs O’Reilly’s sister, who has her own large family, has been caring for the children left behind by the tragedy.

It should be noted that Irish law is rather lenient on drunk drivers.  In this particular case, the court heard that the drunk driver was travelling at speed when he lost control and crossed over to the wrong side of the road before crashing head-on into an another car. In some legal jurisdictions, such as under the California Vehicle Code, causing bodily injury to another person  while drunk driving is a specific criminal offense. Such road traffic accidents are only accidents in the sense that there are not planned, but they are not accidents in the sense that they are unforeseen. Anyone who drinks alcohol and then decides to drive a motor vehicle is clearly putting other people at risk and accidents are predictable.

Twelve Irish organisations have signed  the European Road Safety Charter in Dublin today. The European Union statistics for 2008 show that there were 1.3 million road traffic accidents, 39,000 road deaths, and 1.6 million injuries. It is estimated that road traffic injuries cost about 2% of European GDP.
The charter focuses on reducing the number of road traffic accidents in Europe with measures that improve vehicle safety, road infrastructure safety, and driver behaviour.
The twelve new Irish signatories of the European Road Safety Charter are Cavan Area Rural Transport, Community Transport Association of Ireland, Dún Laoghaire – Rathdown County Council, ECO Unesco, Headway Ireland, Irish Medical Organisation, Irish Road Haulage Association, Metroplex Ireland, Shell, The Irish Insurance Federation, Vantastic, and World Rally Team Ireland.