IRELAND // Better police enforcement, a five-year road safety strategy that has been in place since 2007, and an overall improvement in driver attitudes to road safety and drink driving have been partly attributed to a fall in road deaths in Ireland for 2009.
Last year, 241 people lost their lives on Irish roads, the lowest figure since record-keeping began in 1959. 2005 was one of the worst years on record with 397 deaths.
The target of the five-year strategy was 252 deaths a year by 2012 and Brian Farrell, spokesperson for the Road Safety Authority says that it is important that complacency doesn't set in and Ireland must now push to become one of the safest countries in Europe.
"What we have achieved in 2009 is remarkable, but we can save more lives," says Farrell.
"There are countries with better road safety records than ourselves and we have to aim for that. We can become one of the safest countries in Europe if we continue what we are doing."
motoring@thenational.ae
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The Vines - In Miracle Land
Two stars
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
