Families who have lost loved ones on Northern Ireland’s roads are to stage their first ever charity walk to raise awareness and funds to help deliver vital support services for those who have been left behind.
The Road Ahead NI will hold its ‘Walk for Safer Futures’ on Sunday, August 30, and is appealing to everyone to come along and show their support.
It is being planned to coincide with National Road Victim Month in August and it is hoped it will become an annual event.
Road Ahead NI spokesperson Monica Heaney stressed the importance of such occasions in raising awareness in an effort to try and reduce the number of lives needlessly lost on local roads.
Her own son, Karl, died after a collision on the A1, between Dromore and Banbridge, in May 2018. The 27-year-old had been training with his Newry Mitchels GFC team and had been making his way back to his house at Carryduff when the collision happened.
Monica told Armagh I : “We started the Road Ahead NI in 2019, initially as a support group, but it has developed into a whole service for people affected by road traffic collisions. Everyone on the committee has been affected by, in some way, a road traffic collision, and we just realised there was very little support for people following something so traumatic happening.”
The Road Ahead NI provides trauma-informed support, peer connection and therapeutic programmes for people impacted in many ways by a road traffic collision. Through personal stories, advocacy and community engagement, the charity seeks to improve post-collision support and raise awareness of the lasting impact road crashes have on individuals, families and communities.
The walk will leave Newry City FC grounds at 11am and proceed along the greenway on a pre-mapped route before returning to the starting point.
Participants are asked to sign up and pay a nominal £5 fee, with the money used to help the Road Ahead NI continue its all-important work.
“We charge as little as we possibly can, but we need to fundraise to provide services for people affected,” explained Monica. “Our biggest outgoing is the counselling that we provide. We are a charity, so we rely quite heavily on donations so we try and make as much as we can to provide that service.
“The more people we get to sign up, that would be great, because then the more impact we can have.
“The walk is always something that has been in the pipeline, but I think we’ve seen the number of road traffic collisions have been increasing and we just really want to more or less shine a light on the impact that that has on families and communities.
“And we want to raise awareness and try and get services for people who have been affected, and more education to try and reduce these collisions, because we can see them increasing and there has to be some sort of action taken to try and stop them.
“We’re hoping that it will become an annual event. August is Road Victims Month, so we would like that to happen every year, that people come out and hopefully we can see the number of road traffic collisions reducing and that would be lovely, if we could see year on year that it’s going in the right direction as opposed to rising.”
In planning the walk, the charity is doing so with the simple message: ‘Every step is a call for change.’
And they feel that the more feet on the ground the louder that message becomes.
“Road traffic collisions don’t end at the roadside,” added Monica. “They leave loved ones grieving, survivors living with life-changing injuries and trauma and families and communities forever changed. Even collisions where no-one is killed or seriously injured can leave lasting emotional scars, with many people living with anxiety, fear and a loss of confidence every time they get behind the wheel or travel on our roads.”
As a group, the Road Ahead NI allows those who have been affected to share experiences and derive comfort from each other.
As Monica said: “When you’re sitting with people who understand where you’re coming from, it gives you support in that. That’s what we’re trying to create, so that people have that, because there was nothing really in Northern Ireland for people who’ve been affected by road traffic collisions.
“There’s lots of support, there’s a lot of charities for all different things, but there was nothing really for road traffic collisions, which really shocked me when it happened just that there was no support.
“This is something you never will get over. But with support you can move forward and you can find support in each other.
So it gives you a little bit of hope. These tragedies, you’re never going to recover from. You’re never going to get over it. It’s just something that you learn to live with.”
As a charity, the Road Ahead NI also wants to give voice to those who have been taken away from their families and loved ones before their time.
And they believe that the powers-that-be should be doing more – within the classrooms and within the courts – to help reverse the trend.
At the same time, everyone has a responsibility to do their bit to ensure our roads are safer for us all.
“Very often you hear about road traffic collisions and the victims, their voices aren’t heard,” added Monica. “There’s a lot of people that feel a road traffic collision is not given the same sort of authority over other crimes and it seems to be lesser. We want to raise that it is a serious issue and it needs to be treated equally and that we get a recognition for that.
“We also need our Government to step up and invest in education. I’m very shocked that there’s no education in schools.
It’s not compulsory for children to be taught road safety in schools. It seems to be a decision that each school has to make, but I think it should be compulsory.
“They should step up with education and enforcement. We hear about the sentences that are delivered to people who have caused serious crimes on our roads and they don’t get a very harsh sentence. So that needs to be looked at.”
The Walk for Safer Futures is one way which the Road Ahead NI feels that they can help bring pressure to bring about change – while allowing them to continue to offer the services so many sadly need.
For that reason, people are being urged to come along and send out a clear message by their presence on the day.
“We’re asking people, even if you haven’t been affected, to come out and show support,” said Monica. “We’re all road users, we’re all pedestrians, cyclists, and all use the road, so it could happen to anyone. This can happen to anyone or you can cause a collision, so we want people to come out and show their support that we need more services, we need more education so that people are aware.
“Whether you have been personally affected by road trauma or simply want to stand in solidarity, your presence matters.
“Together we will remember those we’ve lost, honour those whose lives have been forever changed and call for greater investment in road safety, prevention, education and support services.”
If you would like to take part in the Walk for Safer Futures, you can confirm your attendance here.
And for more information on the Road Ahead NI, visit the website at www.theroadaheadni.co.uk
