Derrytresk road safety event cancelled after protest planned over PSNI involvement
27th April 2012 | By: Coalisland Post | 5 Comments »
Conor O’Neill, Ronan O’Neill, Peter Kilpatrick, Kevin Campbell, Paul Hanna and Conor Gavin promote the ill-fated Live to Play event. Photo: Oliver Corr
Derrytresk GAC was forced to call off a road safety event after angry residents threatened to protest over the PSNI’s involvement in the meeting.
A Live to Play road safety campaign event was to be held at Derrytresk GAC on Monday, with road safety educators, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service and officers from the PSNI taking part to show club members how best to stay safe.
But according to Connla Young from the Irish News, the meeting was cancelled after local people threatened to picket the event upon learning that the PSNI would be involved.
Club chairman Barney Campbell said: “At the end of the day it was a good thing for young people to be aware of this but the other side of the coin is people were not happy with them [police officers] being there.
“I got a few calls and the ones that did call were very insistent that it should not be happening.”
The Live to Play campaign, designed and co-ordinated by Ulster GAA in conjunction with Tyrone County Committee, aims to raise awareness of road safety.
The event was planned for club members aged 16 and over and was promoted through publicity shots of Derrytresk players holding banners.
But on Saturday, Tyrone GAA cryptically announced through their Facebook page that the event was called off.
The message read: “The Live to Play event in Derrytresk Monday next 23rd April has been postponed until mid-May. More detail will follow in due course. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
What do you think about this? Was the PSNI’s involvement wrong? Should Derrytresk have continued to hold the event? Share your views by commenting below
Comments:
5 Comments on “Derrytresk road safety event cancelled after protest planned over PSNI involvement”
In today’s society, road accidents are one of the biggest causes of death and serious injury to our young men, and increasingly our young women in the 17 to 24 age bracket. Added to this is the fact that the actions of our young drivers also lead to the death and serious injuries of other road users from other drivers to pedestrians and bystanders. Young female death/injury is usually the result of being carried as a passenger by young males out to impress them by fast dangerous driving.
When a young person takes to the roads as a new driver there are a number of services they don’t want to have any experience of. These are the fire, ambulance and police service, all out there doing their job. Hopefully they never need to use the first two services mentioned, (although statistics show they will need at least one of them before they reach the age of 24, especially if the are male), they will definitely encounter the police or road traffic branch on a regular basis.
The police however we view them are an integral part of driving and road safety, whether we like it or not. To think we can prepare our young people to take to the roads without their input is akin to preparing them for an exam but not allowing them to learn to read or write. As a road user for more years than I care to remember, I have found that our driving standards are atrocious and anyone who gets caught speeding or driving without due care view it as a personal attack on them by the PSNI and complain loudly about the fine and points gained. This misplaced attitude masks what the real outcome of their actions could have been, namely having to live with the fact that have caused the death of someone. The attitude of those residents is so outdated it would be laughable if it didn’t concern something as serious as the safety of our young drivers and other road users. I have no doubt that if someone belonging to those same residents was involved in a serious road traffic accident caused by the actions of a careless or dangerous driver, the PSNI would be called pretty quickly.
Until they become An Garda Síochána na hÉireann they will not be welcome in this community.
Neanderthals
They would need to learn to move on. If their house was to get broken into who would they call? If someone had been involved in an accident who would they call? I can understand the underlying problems, but isn’t it time we all drew a line under the past and tried to move on as a united front? There is so much more the people of coalisland and the lough shore should be focusing on
God! You people still live in the past, you’re as bad as the others! Thought you’s be different….it’s sad we still live in this sorta society….hope you all grow up and move on with your lives just like everyone else has!