Residents "living in fear" on old Longford road

A family living on the old Longford road at Cullionmore, Mullingar is 'living in fear' of the possibility that a pattern of accidents taking place outside their front gate may one day end up in a terrible tragedy.John McDonnell, a father of two living beyond the junction with the road to St. Brigid"s Well, said that Westmeath County Council needs to take immediate measures to increase safety on the road.His house is located in an area which is already highlighted as an accident blackspot, but this hasn"t stemmed the tide of accidents happening outside his front gate.'We"re absolutely worn out and agitated,' Mr. McDonnell told the Westmeath Examiner. 'Someone"s going to be killed. You have kids playing in gardens along this road, and even though it"s not the main road to Longford anymore, you still have a high volume of traffic with people going to and from the two schools, or going to the lake.'With roads hit by icy and snowy conditions in recent weeks and months, residents maintain that the road is becoming even more hazardous.'We went to the Council and asked them to grit the road, but we were told that they only grit the major roads,' Mr. McDonnell said. 'Whenever they do grit it, it"s only to make the area safe for Gardaí and the emergency services to remove a car after a crash.'The latest accident took place at the house just two nights ago, demolishing the garden fence, knocking around fifteen trees and tearing up part of the garden. 'There"s not point in putting up a front wall, repairing the fence or replanting trees, because it"s just going to happen again, be it during summer or winter,' Mr. McDonnell added.'Just a few weeks ago we had another accident, where a car came through the fence and into a garden. We had a birthday party at the house, and just an hour and a half before it happened, kids were playing in the garden.'The McDonnell family have lived at their Cullionmore home for the past four years, and have endured fright after fright on the local road, which once formed part of the main Dublin-Sligo N4.Another accident at the house saw a wedge of timber from the broken fence breach the windscreen of the car involved, on the passenger"s side. Luckily, there was no passenger in the car at the time.Although the road has been downgraded since the development of the new N4, it nevertheless hosts a considerable amount of traffic, with students going to and from St. Finian"s College, Mullingar and Gaelscoil an Choilín, Cullion, and visitors driving out to Lough Owel.Local councillor Jim Bourke said that he was aware of the McDonnell family"s plight, and that he and a number of his colleagues on Westmeath County Council had made representations in a bid to get this and other roads gritted during the winter months.'We are still putting pressure on the Council"s engineering staff to grit the road, to help families get their kids to school in the mornings, and to ensure the safety of people living on the road,' the Fianna Fáil man said.'If residents requested maintenance or safety measures on the road, we would certainly support them, and we would be glad to meet up with residents of the area to see what we can do.'