Over the past few months, I have noticed a subtle change in how some media outlets report pedestrian and cyclist deaths. It is both interesting and disturbing, and warrants closer attention. A very tragic incident happened recently in Galway city, in the Wellpark area, when a pedestrian was knocked down by a bus and, tragically, was pronounced dead at the scene. A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána reported, “Gardaí are appealing for witnesses following a fatal road traffic collision”. The Irish Independent reported it also as a “road collision” and “crash”, while the RTÉ website stated the pedestrian was “struck by a bus”. I couldn’t find a report on either the Irish Times or the Irish Examiner website about the road death at that time. Of these reports, in my opinion, the RTÉ website most accurately reflected the true nature of the incident.
In physics, a collision is an event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other. Most common use of the word collision refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great force, although the scientific use of the term implies nothing about the magnitude of the force. It is “any interaction between particles, aggregates of particles, or rigid bodies in which they come near enough to exert a mutual influence, generally with exchange of energy”. Mutual means “directed and received by each toward the other; reciprocal”. Reciprocal means equal or shared, and is the opposite of one-sided. Crash, the noun, is “a breaking to pieces by or as if by collision”.
I find it difficult to equate the term collision with a 30,000-pound double-decker bus striking a frail 80-year-old woman crossing the road. There’s just something very disproportionate about this impact that requires a more exact word or term than collision. Or perhaps it is merely a bit of irrational paranoia or mischievousness on my part. And while I apportion no particular blame to the drivers in such cases, who no doubt suffer significant trauma from such events, am I alone in thinking that there is some victim-blaming going on here? I thought I was alone in what I was noticing, but it seems I’m not.
In a LinkedIn post, the Irish Cycling Campaign reported on an open letter dated the 13th of September 2025 from Irish Doctors for the Environment regarding the language used in road death reports in Ireland. In their letter, the doctors were appalled at how “the Irish media continue to portray the ongoing carnage on our roads”. They noted that in an article titled “Cyclists (80s) dies following a hit-and-run in Co Meath”, the deceased was denoted only as a cyclist and not a person who had tragically died after being struck by a car which failed to stop. Indeed, they noted that the article referred to “the vehicle involved failed to remain at the scene”, when, in fact, it was not the vehicle that made this decision; it was the driver, another person, who failed to remain at the scene. They outlined their reasoning behind their dismay at such language by stating that such language “obscures accountability, diminishes victims, and normalises preventable tragedies. This man did not simply die – he was killed”.
So, language matters. It shapes how we perceive and understand the world around us, and when used insensitively, it can diminish the impacts and consequences of such tragedies on our roads. In 2025, there were 185 fatalities on public roads in Ireland, marking an 8% increase from the previous year. The RSA report highlighted a rise in deaths among vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. Nearly 1.2 million people are estimated to be killed on the world’s roads each year, with road crashes being the leading cause of death among children and young people aged 5 to 29 years. These are staggering figures, and behind each arises a personal or family tragedy of immense magnitude. We need reporting that does not obscure the realities and dangers faced by all road users, not least the most vulnerable. Maybe when these injuries and deaths are reported more acutely and as the enormous tragedies they are, we will begin to face up to the fact that we don’t take road safety as seriously as we should. So, stop reporting on inanimate pedestrians and cyclists, and report about the elderly lady whose life has been cut short just because she was forced to share some road space with a 30,000-pound bus. A good place to begin this change is the guidance provided in the RCRG report on best-practice reporting.
