Collisions recorded on a stretch of Cork\u2019s N40 increased by more than 21% in a 12-month period.<\/p>\n
There were 268 collisions recorded between the Kinsale Road junction and the Jack Lynch Tunnel across 2024 and 2025, according to figures presented at the latest meeting of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na\u2019s Community Safety Forum.<\/p>\n
The number of incidents rose by 21.5% in 2025 to 147, up from 121 in 2024.<\/p>\n
There were no fatal incidents recorded during this time, with the majority of collisions resulting in material damage only. There were several minor injury collisions, and one serious injury collision.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na said some collision data has \u201cnot been included for data cleaning requirements or missing and\/or inaccurate coordinates, so information should not be presumed exhaustive of every incident that occurred for the period\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking to The Echo, Labour Party councillor Peter Horgan, who is the chair of Cork City Council\u2019s Transport Committee, said this is \u201cvaluable data that shows the issues at play with driving on this section of the N40\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cA mixture of [improved] driver behaviour and [increased] garda presence is crucial to try and mitigate the collisions that invariably snarl up our entire city,\u201d said Mr Horgan.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoads policing presence is welcome, but it must be regular and resourced by the commissioner for the safety of Cork drivers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) called the N40 \u201cthe M50 of Cork, so we are very much aware of it and have people monitoring it 24\/7″.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a dedicated incident response team on-site during peak hours, who work with the garda\u00ed,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also have intelligent transportation systems \u2014 cameras, sensors, loop detectors, and variable message signs \u2014 which help with dealing with incidents and managing traffic flow.<\/p>\n
\u201cStatistically, traffic volumes are increasing because of the population increase, which leads to increased traffic accidents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere can be an accordion impact where an incident occurs and somebody doesn\u2019t realise\u00a0\u2014 which means everything gets backed up,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, if we can tell people that there\u2019s an incident ahead, which we can now with the variable message signs, we won\u2019t have that accordion effect anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vast majority of daily users are familiar with the Dunkettle Interchange, it\u2019s the infrequent users that\u2019s going to take some time \u2014 but it was the same with the motorway network when we built it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just an acclimation period that has to happen.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collisions recorded on a stretch of Cork\u2019s N40 increased by more than 21% in a 12-month period. There…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28858,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-372478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-cork-roads","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}