{"id":368,"date":"2026-01-29T00:37:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/?p=368"},"modified":"2026-02-14T11:00:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:00:53","slug":"reporting-on-the-growing-tragedies-of-road-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/2026\/01\/29\/reporting-on-the-growing-tragedies-of-road-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Reporting on the Growing Tragedies of Road Deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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 S\u00edoch\u00e1na reported, \u201cGarda\u00ed are appealing for witnesses following a fatal road traffic collision\u201d. The Irish Independent<\/a> reported it also as a \u201croad collision\u201d and \u201ccrash\u201d, while the RT\u00c9 website<\/a> stated the pedestrian was \u201cstruck by a bus\u201d. I couldn\u2019t 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 RT\u00c9 website most accurately reflected the true nature of the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nphysics<\/a>, a collision is an event in which two or more bodies exert forces\non each other. Most common use of the word collision refers to incidents in\nwhich two or more objects collide with great force, although the scientific use\nof the term implies nothing about the magnitude of the force. It is \u201cany\ninteraction between particles, aggregates of particles, or rigid bodies in\nwhich they come near enough to exert a mutual influence, generally with\nexchange of energy\u201d. Mutual means \u201cdirected and received by each toward the\nother; reciprocal\u201d. Reciprocal means equal or shared, and is the opposite of\none-sided. Crash, the noun, is \u201ca breaking to pieces by\nor as if by collision<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019m not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a LinkedIn post<\/a>, 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 \u201cthe Irish media continue to portray the ongoing carnage on our roads\u201d. They noted that in an article titled \u201cCyclists (80s) dies following a hit-and-run in Co Meath\u201d, 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 \u201cthe vehicle involved failed to remain at the scene\u201d, 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 \u201cobscures accountability, diminishes victims, and normalises preventable tragedies. This man did not simply die \u2013 he was killed\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>, 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<\/a>, 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\u2019t 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, … Continue reading “Reporting on the Growing Tragedies of Road Deaths”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[88,81,80,78],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transport","tag-cars","tag-cyclists","tag-pedestrians","tag-road-deaths"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9PkQ3-5W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikehynes.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}