DUBLIN, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- Ireland will distribute free high-visibility vests to children as they return to school over the coming few days as part of its efforts to reduce road deaths in the country, which have seen a rising tendency since this year, said an official from Road Safety Authority (RSA) on Thursday.
An estimated 97,000 free high-visibility vests will be distributed to children across the country as they will return to school starting in September, said Annette Ferguson, an official from the Communications Department of the RSA, a state agency responsible for road safety in Ireland, in an email sent to Xinhua.
Providing free high-visibility vests to school children aged below 15 is part of a back-to-school campaign launched by the RSA in partnership with a local electricity company ESB Networks in 2011 to ensure their safety on the roads, said Ferguson, adding that the partnership has so far provided 880,000 children throughout the country with high-visibility vests free of charge.
A total of 35 children aged 15 and under were killed on Irish roads in the five years from 2014 to 2018, according to the RSA figures.
It is believed that the RSA's back-to-school campaign will not only help protect the safety of the Irish school children on the roads but also will help curb the rising tendency of road deaths in the country.
During the first seven months of this year, a total of 89 people were killed on the Irish roads, up 7 percent compared to the same period of last year, showed the RSA figures.
The figures are "alarming", said Moyagh Murdock, CEO of the RSA, in a recent statement, adding that the figures clearly indicated that the progress which has been made in road safety in Ireland over the last two years is "at risk of stalling".
Last year Ireland was recognized as the second safest European Union member state in terms of road fatalities, which saw a drop of 4 percent in its road deaths to a record low of 149 over the previous year, according to the Irish ministry for transport.
It is the belief of the RSA that efforts to avoid more road deaths must be stepped up or the Irish government's target to reduce its road deaths to 120 or below by 2020 can hardly be achieved.
