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.