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“I HAVE ABSOLUTELY no memory of the accident at all. Nor do I even have any memory of the job I was doing before the accident.”
On 23 February 2009, 13 years ago this week, Laura Doherty suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in a road collision. It would change her life, and her family’s lives, forever.
At the time of her crash, Laura was working as a doctor in Temple Street Hospital. Feeling tired after a long shift, and en route from Dublin to Sligo for a job interview, she tried to overtake another vehicle just outside Edgeworthstown, Co Longford.
“I don’t know if I must have thought I was still on the motorway and that it was safe to overtake,” she says. “But it wasn’t safe.” After pulling out from behind the vehicle in front, Laura met another vehicle coming towards her in the opposite direction. She attempted to swerve to avoid it, and the vehicle hit her car on the driver’s side.
The consequences for Laura and her family were immediate and “major,” says her mother Patricia.
First of all there was the trauma of not knowing what was going to happen. Whether she was going to die or survive. Once she survived then, there was all the other trauma… We realised it was going to be a major uphill battle.
Lasting impact
Laura spent a year in a wheelchair as she learned to walk again. Today, she can walk and move independently, but there are other long-term effects from her injuries: most significantly, problems with her short-term cognition, memory loss, and the epilepsy she developed following the crash.
“It’s a completely different life. I’m a different person to what I was. I’ll forget what I did, or what I’m doing today. It’s hard to plan, things like that.”
Laura’s parents and siblings support her to live as independently as she can, ensuring she always has someone there to help her with everyday tasks and providing transport to help her get from A to B.
“The brain injury deprived [Laura] of an awful lot of normal things,” says Patricia.
It is difficult to see everyone else going on with their lives, the life that she was hoping to have. It is difficult for her, in a major way. Sometimes people underestimate that, they don’t realise that. But she just gets up and gets on with her life.
Journey to zero
Last year in Ireland, over a thousand families like Laura’s got the life-altering news that a loved one had died or was seriously injured as a result of a road collision.
It’s a tragedy that happens far too often, but within the coming decades, it’s hoped Ireland will reach a point where no more families will have to experience such pain.
The government’s new Road Safety Strategy for 2021 – 2030, Our Journey Towards Vision Zero, sets out an ambitious plan to cut the number of fatalities and serious injuries on Irish roads in half by 2030. This means reducing the number of road deaths annually from 144 to 72 or lower, and reducing the number of serious injuries annually from 1,259 to 630 or lower.
By 2050, the goal is for those numbers to be cut to zero.
The strategy’s Phase 1 Action Plan covers the years 2021 to 2024, and is backed by government investment of €3.7bn. A total of 50 high-impact actions and 136 support actions are included in the plan.
Enforcement of “lifesaving offences” – like driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, not wearing a seatbelt and using a mobile phone while driving – will continue to be a priority, with increased sanctions for drug, polydrug and alcohol use.
An increased investment in road infrastructure is another core theme, supporting the creation of more “forgiving” roadsides (for example, roadsides with flexible crash barriers that could help to minimise the impact of a collision), and supporting the development of safer road environments for vulnerable road users.
Other actions include the potential creation of an online portal for people to upload footage of road traffic offences which could assist with prosecutions, and improved walking and cycling facilities.
These developments, along with prioritisation of life-changing technology like Intelligent Speed Assistance, will be key in helping Ireland achieve its road safety targets.
The Phase 1 Action Plan places a particular emphasis on speed, the single biggest contributory factor to collisions and road deaths in Ireland. Between now and the end of 2024, Ireland’s framework for the setting of speed limits will be reviewed, and among the potential changes to be considered is a 30km/hr default speed limit for urban areas.
Shared responsibility
Our Journey Towards Vision Zero is described by the Road Safety Authority as being the “public’s strategy.” Not only does it represent real public input in the form of over 2,000 responses from people around Ireland, but it’s also a strategy that calls on a shared commitment from people around the country.
From those who design roadways, to those using the roads, to the first responders at the scene of a collision, every single person has a shared obligation to help make our roads safer and reduce – or prevent – the lasting consequences of a collision. The Safe System Approach, which is central to the Vision Zero strategy, emphasises this responsibility.
Our roads are spaces where mutual respect and consideration is key, and spaces where we all must work together to prioritise the safety of those who are most vulnerable, like children and the elderly.
Road traffic collisions like Laura’s can happen in an instant, and the effects can be colossal, says Patricia.
It only takes a second, it only takes an absolute second, to change your life completely… You learn to live with it, you learn to adjust to it, but it’s never going to be the same.
Every one of us has a role to play in making Vision Zero a reality, starting with reducing deaths on Ireland’s roads by 50% by 2050. Learn more about our journey towards Vision Zero – and the shared commitments we all must make – by watching the video above.
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Apollo House is a short term solution and a longer term solution is required.
Apollo House has re-ignited outrage over homelessness.
Others will fill the vacancies.
If you can afford to donate, here is the online link.
@Scarlett Milton: There would be no stunts needed if the government took its sworn duty to look after ALL the citizens of the country in a serious manner. It was FG who brought the eviction bill before the Dail and backed it up with the Courts (2016) Bill. This along with its neo-liberal love for market economics, that makes a commodity for profit out of all human need, is what caused the homeless epidemic.
Brendan Ogle, is a first rate organiser, a leader, who can bring people together in common cause. He has used his energies to do something positive to help and highlight the homeless epidemic in the country. Dame Enda, has done diddly squat, nothing, except to legislate to make the problem worse.
Government are in hiding.shame on them.
@@mdmak33: They haven’t really hidden. Their agencies have taken up the fight against Apollo Hse and the organisers.
Apollo Hse and the organisers are not on the list of approved charities, they don’t depend on government funding, the approved charities do.
@@mdmak33:was just thinking that my sled not a word from any of them . Especially independents where are u all gone
@John Scott: the politicians are certainly running scared on this one.
@Scarlett Milton: Home Sweet Home and Apollo House is primarily about generating a critical mass of awareness of and motivation to address the homeless crisis.
This is about issues and not about personalities.
I smell a rat on this. So PMVT are offering all tenants of Apollo a 6 month residential opportunity? How quick was that?! They are trying to undermine the positivity of what has happened by reducing the nightly count in Apollo to zero quickly. They are working through government funded charities to do so. We saw through it Kenny. .
@saoirse janneau: it does seem very odd that 6 month spaces should open up with such remarkable speed.
It’s stretching things to suggest that these spaces were planned and provided in a week. The truth of the matter, that these spaces were planned already, might not suit Brendan ogle’s election purposes, but everyone but the paranoid conspiracy theorists can understand it.
@John Mulligan: then thankfully Apollo House played an invaluable role as a stop gap measure to accommodate more than 35 homeless people as Storm Barbara approaches.
I take the people involved in Home Sweet Home as principled, humane, idealistic and altruistic. I include Ogle in that.
@Micheal OLainn @saoirse janneau: I think it´s very important right now to be careful not to direct our (very justified anger) towards PMVT. A charity who have applauded the newcomers Home Sweet Home and have decades of experience of fighting homelessness are not the people we need to put under the microscope. Direct your anger and your misgivings towards the governement. What´s their response?
@Micheal OLainn: It’s a very clever spin attack, meant to divide public opinion and remove the huge support the Apollo Hse has received from the public.
The government’s usual response to any display of people power.
@Dave Doyle: you are absolutely right and I found myself falling for it.
@Micheál Clesham: I truly accept your valid and justified criticism. Well said and I hold the McVerry trust and FathercMcVerry in the highest esteem. Indeed I have made donations but I feel protective of the Apollo House initiative which is beleaguered from many sides, most lately from Dublin City Council.
Interesting http://jrnl.ie/3157263f
32 have not taken up the offer yet .. that’s sad really ..
@Dave Doyle: brilliant and comprehensive comment.
what kind of trolls were out tonight?
@John Byrne: I don´t disagree with some of what you´ve said (i although i´m not sure where you´re going with the last line).
But, did the fight against homelessness not need a publicity stunt? Surely no one believes that anything about Apollo House is long term but was there any harm in throwing up a hail-mary move like this?
@Scarlett Milton: You’re a typical example of ‘you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t’. This is not about personalities, and your attitude is unhelpful and you’re simply just looking to stir this typical online drama to pass your time. Be original for gods sake and find something else to poke at!!
Give it another 3 weeks or so and nobody will give a flying f€&k until Christmas comes around again and Glen gets all festive emotional again. It’s government action that is needed not out of work crusties singin Kumbuya.
@TellingItAsItIs: thankfully you will be proven wrong. Your low class jibes discredit your feeble point. The flag has been raised.
@Michael Mark my words. You’ll be eating crusty humble pie as soon as a few of their dole days comes around.
@John Byrne: A load of bollixology from you. It’s not about Brendan Ogle or the organisers. It’s all about the government and its neo-liberal market primacy ideology that turns human need in a for profit commodity. A government that has farmed out its responsibilities to charities. Charities where the majority of the funding goes on salaries and a pittance goes where it’s intended.
Apollo Hse has shown people what can be done when people organise themselves and use the resources at their disposal, the vacant, public owned buildings, to give some respite to the most disadvantaged in society. And it terrifies the government.
The PMVT versus Apollo Hse spin we are now seeing spread across the media is phase two of the government’s response. The first being the very fast court action. This latest stunt to divide people and get the government off the hook wont work if the truth is told. What PMVT is offering the homeless is also a long time in the planning. It too offers the homeless a genuine alternative to a shop doorway, or a mat covered floorspace, that takes no account of the homeless’s problems, needs, safety or dignity. That’s the best DCC can come up with.
Public leaders are well entitled to demand how the government spends the resources. That’s democracy. The government’s sworn duty is to use the resources of the state for the benefit of ALL its citizens. The government and its love for a market driven ideology does not serve its ALL citizens. It serves only a select few.
75 Social housing units built this year, the government’s reluctance to provide council housing is why we are here, they put it on to private landlords to fill the gap through RAS and it hasn’t worked, it’s basically privatisation of Social housing, there are always going to be people who cannot afford to buy their own house and these people should be accommodated by Social housing.
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