Offaly Rotary Club to spearhead major road safety campaign

Tullamore and District Rotary Club with the assistance of the Department of Trauma & Orthopaedics in Tullamore Hospital are spearheading a road safety campaign based around the “Be Safe Be Seen” concept.

It aims to raise awareness of all aspects of road safety with the 40,000 schoolchildren in the midland counties of Offaly, Laois and Westmeath.

Anne Marie McMahon, Deputy Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, will launch the2022 Winter “Be Safe Be Seen” campaign for the schools of the Midlands, at Ballinagar National School, Tullamore on Friday, November 11 next at approximately 10 am.

The organisers have the full support of An Garda Síochána, the National Ambulance Service, Air Ambulance, Fire Services, HSE as well as RSA advocates.

The launch will be attended by all the first responders of the emergency services with representatives and vehicles/appliances etc.

The Road Safety Authority reports that pedestrians on dark rural roads are 13 times more likely to be killed than those walking in daylight

This safety initiative continues to target primary school children from across the Midlands, as they travel to school during the dark winter mornings and evenings.

The organisers ambition is to educate children and by extension their parents/guardians as to the continuous message of all aspects of road safety.

“As a surgeon that deals with the trauma associated with road traffic accidents, I can say that the pain and hurt associated with road traffic accidents and fatalities continues long after the accident. Prevention will always be the best way forward. Even if a single life is saved through this initiative it will be a success,” said Eoin Sheehan, President of Tullamore & District Rotary Club who is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Tullamore Hospital.

Over 25,000 high visibility, life-saving discs will be distributed to primary schools across the region in a collaboration involving surgeons of Tullamore hospital, Tullamore & District Rotary Club, Tullamore Credit Unions, national school principals and teachers and the local and national media.

The ‘Be Safe, Be Seen’ campaign also features intense broadcast and online public safety messages, using emotive testimonials from medics with coalface experience of the damage inflicted by road collisions.

All of this is voluntary with the children participating and engaging in the delivery of the road safety message