Serious traffic accidents can happen suddenly and devastatingly in any part of Ireland, north or south, as the weekend tragedy which left two young men dead on the Ravenhill Road in Belfast demonstrated starkly.
Reports that a number of similar collisions have taken in place at the same location must be fully investigated, and it is equally important that the debate about safety standards on the A5, widely regarded as the country’s most dangerous road, is intensified.
It connects Derry city with the border village of Aughnacloy in Co Tyrone, is part of the main link between Donegal and Dublin, and carries a huge number of vehicles daily.
The A5 is effectively a lengthy single carriageway, and has witnessed many accidents along notorious stretches close to schools, churches and residential districts.
Plans to upgrade it date back many years, with a major proposal being tabled in 2006 but followed by a series of legally justifiable challenges and public inquiries which have delayed the project to a completely unanticipated degree.
It is appalling that 42 people have been killed on the A5 during the same period, with many others seriously injured, and a traumatic incident took place in the Garvaghey area of Tyrone only last month involving the death of three young men.
One of the victims was Nathan Corrigan, and his mother, Kate, has asked the authorities to take urgent action, with her plea supported through an official letter to the Stormont executive from the GAA's Tyrone county board.
Nathan died when he and two friends, all in their early 20s, were in a car which was in collision with a lorry close to their homes, and his mother's words deserve to be given the most profound consideration at all levels.
She wants to see an overall A5 scheme completed but believes that strategic measures, including the placing of speed ramps and warning lights at black spots where previous fatalities have occurred, need to be introduced in the short term.
The cost should certainly not be prohibitive, and the possibility of a contribution from the Dublin government, which agreed and then disappointingly withdrew additional funding for the A5 back in 2011, should also be explored.
Above all, it is essential that a road on which lives are placed in jeopardy every day should not be left in its present condition any longer.
