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    Tuesday, October 27

    Ireland Road Accident Map: Collision Hotspots and Crash Data by Location

    An interactive map of every serious-injury and fatal road collision recorded across Ireland in 2024 — revealing that the locations where crashes happen most often are not the same places where they kill.

    n 2024, Ireland recorded 1,582 serious-injury and fatal road collisions across all 26 counties. Behind those numbers lies a stark geographical divide. Dublin generated the largest share of incidents over a quarter of the national total concentrated heavily around the city centre during the evening commute. But the west of Ireland tells a different story: Mayo, Donegal, Sligo and Roscommon recorded fatality rates per capita that were three to ten times higher than their urban counterparts.

    This dashboard maps every recorded incident with location, severity, time-of-day and month. Use the filters to compare counties, isolate fatal versus serious-injury collisions, or focus on specific months and time bands. The patterns are immediate: rural roads at night, the February dark, and the 4-8pm commute emerge as Ireland’s three deadliest conditions together accounting for the majority of lives lost on the country’s roads last year.

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    Ireland Road Collision Heatmap

    2024 — Serious Injuries & Fatalities

    County
    Incident Type
    Month
    Time Band
    0Fatal
    0Serious Inj.
    0Total
    Loading collision data...
    Heat Intensity
    LowHigh
    Fatal collision
    Serious injury

    Key Observations

    • Night driving is disproportionately deadly The 30% of incidents that happen between 8pm and 8am produce 46% of all fatalities. In raw terms, the same number of serious crashes between midnight and 4am produces roughly three times as many deaths as those during the lunchtime period.
    • Mayo is Ireland's per-capita fatality hotspot With 10.93 road deaths per 100,000 residents from this dataset alone, Mayo's rate is more than double the national average and 7× higher than Dublin's per-capita rate. Donegal (7.21/100k) is the closest second.
    • The west-of-Ireland fatality belt is real Mayo, Donegal, Sligo, Roscommon and Leitrim — five contiguous western counties — all sit in the top eight for per-capita fatal-collision rate. Geography, road quality, single-carriageway roads and emergency response distances appear to compound here.
    • Dublin generates volume, not lethality. Dublin accounts for 415 incidents (26% of all incidents nationally) but only 13% of fatalities. Its 5.1% fatality rate is the lowest of any high-volume county — urban speeds and faster ambulance response significantly reduce death rates.
    • Eighteen percent of Dublin's collisions happen within 1.5km of the city centre. That's 73 incidents in roughly 7 km² of central Dublin — a concentration of about 10 serious incidents per square kilometre per year, easily the densest collision zone in the country.
    • The 4–8pm evening commute is the single most dangerous window. It produces 439 incidents (28% of all crashes) and 36 fatalities — more than any other time band on both metrics. The map's heatmap intensifies sharply when you filter to this slot.
    • February is the deadliest month — not December. Despite intuitions about winter holiday travel, February recorded 19 fatalities at a 15.3% fatality rate, the highest of any month. November (12.9%) is second. Long dark evenings combined with wet road surfaces appear to matter more than holiday traffic volume.
    • Q1 accounts for 32% of all annual road deaths. January, February and March together produced 50 fatalities — almost a third of the year's total in just 25% of the calendar. Road safety campaigns timed to spring are too late; the damage is concentrated in the first quarter.
    • May is anomalously safe. Despite May having the second-highest incident volume of the year (150), it produced only 8 fatalities — a 5.3% fatality rate, less than half of February's. Longer daylight hours and drier roads appear to neutralise the volume increase.
    • Rural late-night hours show extreme fatality rates. Specific month-time combinations like March 4–8am (36% fatality rate) and July midnight–4am (31% fatality rate) sit far above national averages. These represent late-night rural driving with low traffic volume but catastrophic outcomes when crashes occur.
    • Leitrim has the highest collision rate per capita in Ireland. At 54 incidents per 100,000 residents, Leitrim leads — followed by Monaghan, Donegal and Kerry. These are all rural border or western counties with long stretches of regional roads. Volume is sparse in absolute numbers but heavy relative to population.
    • Rush-hour incidents make up only 45% of crashes despite carrying most of the traffic. This means more than half of all serious crashes happen in off-peak hours, when roads are emptier — strong evidence that speed and reduced vigilance during quieter periods, not congestion, drives collision severity.