A woman who was left with life-changing injuries after the car she was driving was hit by an uninsured driver in 2015 has said she would like to see a dedicated taskforce to catch uninsured drivers.
Niamh O’Callaghan from Shannon in Co Clare also said that more enforcement and more cross-referencing of databases is needed, rather than gardaí dedicating half an hour of their shift to roads policing.
She said the use of this new app which is designed to bleep when a driver without insurance passes by is “piecemeal at best,” when it comes to tackling the issue.
Ms O’Callaghan was 42 years old when the incident happened and said that almost a decade later she is still dealing with the consequences on a daily basis.
“The last thing I want to see happen, is for somebody else to be in my position”
“I was involved in a road traffic accident where someone drove into the back of me and took off and left me on a roundabout. I sustained injuries from that accident which have destroyed my life, the life that I had,” she said.
She added it has also impacted the life of her daughter who was a teenager at the time.
“I became less of a parent, less of a daughter, less of a partner, less of a friend, less of everything,” she explained, due to the pain she is in.
“The last thing I want to see happen, is for somebody else to be in my position.”
She said her life since the incident has been about pain and trying to get back to somewhere that she could reasonably call a life, but trying to pay for treatment for her injuries and even to get insurance for herself have all been made more difficult because the other driver was uninsured.
“It has been incredibly hard without finding anyone to advocate on my behalf,” she said.
“I’ve had four surgeries, I’ve had countless pain management procedures, I have had to endure court twice,” she added.
She said she is now doing her best every day to put her best foot forward for the sake of her family including her now adult daughter.
“She needs to have her mother back, but it’s a fight on a daily basis, it’s pain on a daily basis,” she said.
Ms O’Callaghan uses a mobility chair as an aid to allow her to go shopping and to walk for longer periods.
She said at the current rate it would take 10 years to deal with the number of uninsured cars that are on the roads.
“Nine years later I have finally gotten a car and I have started back driving which has been a very, very hard thing to do but my life has been literally trapped in this house.”
She said she is worried by the carelessness she is still seeing on the roads and also alarmed at the higher premiums she is having to pay since the incident.
