Road Safety Awareness – Promo Shoot

This week was Road Safety Awareness week in I.T Carlow, with a whole host of activities and things going on to promote and raise awareness of road safety.366 people died on Irish roads last year, it’s the equivalent of 1 in 8 students in the college. Having travelled up and down to college every day for the last three years I more than welcomed the event. It’s ridiculous some of the stupid risks people take on the roads and the amount of times I’ve seen people nearly kill themselves and others because they won’t slow down.

Around the college, all week you could see the remains of cars that had crashed on the roads. All of them ridiculously crushed and tour apart, leaving little hope for the thought of the driver actually surviving. Inside the college there were various stalls, video displays, reaction tests and general road safety activities.

On Wednesday I was asked to take promo shots for a car crash re-enactment in the college car park. With hundreds of people gathered to watch, various speakers including model Vivienne Connolly opened the event, followed by the release of 366 white balloons, one for each road death last year.

After that I made my way to the roof of the college library (I’ve always wanted to get up there) to get some shots looking down on people lying, covered in white sheets, in the shape of 366. Then quickly back down to snap the road-crash re-enactment scene. I had also been asked to get some production promo shots for a group making a road safety video who would be filming the re-enactment and for the Carlow Fire & Ambulance Services.

The re-enactment began with the arrival of the Gardai, Fire & Ambulance Services on the scene of the crash, with two victims trapped inside a car which had been hit by another. The driver of that car lay dead having come through the windscreen because he wasn’t wearing a seat-belt.

It was both scary and awesome to be so close and shooting the car crash scene, as the firemen secured the cars and set about saving the survivors. It was also pretty eerie with hundreds of people standing around watching in silence. I need to get rid of my manners when trying to shoot something at the same time as other photographers. Whilst trying to stay out of the way of all the fire and ambulance crew doing their jobs, I was trying to compete with several other photographers and film crew for the best angles. With only seconds to get shots before something/somebody gets in the way, I found that being polite obviously isn’t high up on the list of things to worry about (at least with some photographers).

Slowly but surely the crews secured the vehicles and took them apart piece-by-piece, always ensuring the victims were safe. Constantly moving and thinking, some were cutting the car apart, others were talking to the victims and holding their heads securely, they were always working together. It was amazing to watch them removing the roof of the car and then slowly removing the survivors on spine boards before treating them on the road. Finally, it seemed to get even quieter when the hearse arrived and the body was removed from the other car and placed in a body bag.

I’m still in awe thinking about the amazing jobs these people do everyday. That firemen who don’t get paid, volunteer their time and witness horrible things to try their best to save complete strangers. It’s sad to think how many times they have to do this because of stupid things like people not wearing seat belts or simply driving too fast (as for drink drivers; don’t get me started on those selfish/stupid bastards!).

Hopefully this demonstration will make people think and be more careful, hopefully people will look at my shots and take every precaution so they don’t end up just another statistic of Irish road deaths.

Finally I have to say a huge thanks to I.T Carlow P.R Officer Paula Pollard who always thinks of me when she needs a photographer and of course to Niall Walsh for getting me to and from college safely for the last few years. You can check out all of my photos from the car crash re-enactment here.