Donna Price remembers every minute of the day her son Darren was killed.
The 18-year-old from Mullingar had been on his way to college in Athlone when his Fiat Punto was in a collision with an articulated lorry outside the village of Tyrrellspass on 30 March 2006.
"I still remember exactly where I was," she said.
"I was travelling to Dublin in my car and coming up to Kilmainham in the morning traffic, and the call came in from the guards, and I just knew something terrible had happened.
"They asked me to pull in safely, and they called out Darren's date of birth and asked me if he was my son.
"Your whole world just shatters in an instant."
"We have now been without Darren longer than we had him in our lives to love"
After receiving the devastating news, the gardaí in Kilmainham brought her into the station and made her tea before driving her to Kilcock where she met the gardaí from Mullingar.
"The gardaí were very good and very kind to us that day. They took me down to my home and then onto the morgue in Mullingar.
"I remember every minute of that day. I wouldn't wish it on anyone," she says.
Darren was only just starting out on life when he was tragically killed. He was a first-year engineering student in AIT.
A talented footballer, the previous weekend he had lined out at right corner-back on the Westmeath team that defeated Kilkenny in the Leinster minor football championship.
He had already represented his club The Downs at senior level. He was also a talented basketballer and two years before was honoured with a place on the Irish schools' basketball team.
This week, the Downs GAA club paid tribute to Darren in a post describing him as "one of the club's and Westmeath's brightest prospects" who is "gone but never forgotten".
"It still feels like yesterday, in so many ways," explains Donna.
"We have now been without Darren longer than we had him in our lives to love, it's really so hard."
In the 20 years that have passed, Darren's family and friends have had to try to move on with their own lives, but his loss is deeply felt.
"Things are never the same again, it's a new normal. Everything is either before Darren died or after Darren died.
"I look at Darren's siblings, his two brothers, buying their houses. All my children have got married in the last two years or three years, they have children, Darren's friends, likewise.
"Darren has missed out on so much, he was only setting out on life and that's heartbreaking really."
Group aims to raise awareness around road safety
"We should be doing much more with a real sense of urgency to prevent this devastation"
Donna Price will be known to people as a road safety advocate. She founded the Irish Road Victims Association (IRVA) in 2012, following the inquest into her son's death.
The inquest into Darren's death heard there was insufficient evidence to support a prosecution of the driver of the lorry.
Ms Price said she has many unanswered questions following the hearing and felt that an association was needed to support and advocate for families who had lost loved ones through road collisions.
The group also wanted to raise awareness around road safety and the need for extra vigilance on the roads.
It started with a meeting in the Greville Arms Hotel in Mullingar and grew from there.
"Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to any parent, but to lose them in a car crash when their death could have been prevented makes that loss more difficult to bear, if that is possible.
"It's not an incurable illness that has taken our loved ones. It's a road crash, and they all have causes, be it driver behaviour, or the roads, or whatever caused them.
"We should be doing much more with a real sense of urgency to prevent this devastation and that's what we are about."
2025 was a devastating year on Irish roads. Garda figures showed that there were 188 fatalities. The figure was up from 175 in 2024.
"It's absolutely soul destroying. The figure was the worst in a decade and for the families impacted, it's devastating."
Ms Price acknowledges progress has been made in reducing road fatalities but said more needs to be done.
"I always look back to 2006 when Darren was killed and there were 365 deaths on the road that year, one for every day of the year.
"That has more than halved now but we need to get it to zero."
She says enforcement is key: "The long weekend garda campaigns are not enough. I know the gardaí do their best with limited resources, but we need to see these operations every week.
"We saw all the great results over Christmas and the amount of people that were intercepted.
"What do we need to make sure that we have that on a weekly basis?"
"It's not good enough to have it on one weekend, or one month of the year. We need to see that all the time."
Forty-two people have been killed on Irish roads to date this year.
"One death on our roads is one too many, Ms Price says.
"We need to do more, and we need more urgency to try prevent these totally needless death and injuries. We’re always trying to raise awareness around driver safety."
"We still miss Darren terribly, and that hole or void in our lives will never be filled"
The organisation also provides free information and support to those bereaved or injured by road traffic collisions.
"What we're trying to do with IRVA is help families and empower them as they try to pick up the pieces and get the answers that they need.
"We want them to be able to ask the questions when there may be investigations ongoing and not sit back and think that this is all being done.
"Yes, things have improved over the years, things have definitely improved, but there's still a lot, I think, that could be improved further."
There is a saying that time is a healer but for Ms Price she says the passage of time hasn’t made the loss any easier.
"It doesn't get easier, but I suppose what happens is, you learn to live with it or to cope with it a bit better as the years go on.
"I remember in the early stages, I couldn't even talk about it. I had to carry a bottle of water around with me as I felt I was going to choke, that I'd lost my ability to swallow."
This bank holiday weekend, she is appealing to road users to think about their actions.
"Driver behaviour is worsening, people are on their phones, I see it every day. If people are not worried about meeting a checkpoint, they are going to take a chance.
"We should be doing much more with a real sense of urgency in order to prevent this devastation.
"When you've been through this, you know, you wouldn't wish it on anyone.
"We still miss Darren terribly, and that hole or void in our lives will never be filled. He's our son and will always be our son."
Roads policing a key priority - Commissioner
A statement from the Garda Press Office this week highlighted comments made by Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly at an Oireachtas committee last year.
Addressing the Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration in November, Commissioner Kelly highlighted roads policing as a key priority.
He said "members of An Garda Síochána are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year enforcing road traffic legislation".
"Unlike other specialities, every member of An Garda Síochána, not just roads policing members, are trained in road traffic legislation."
Mr Kelly said that in 2025, non-fulltime roads policing personnel were responsible for over 60% of driving under the influence detections, while 80% of all checkpoints were carried out by frontline non-roads policing personnel.
He said bank holiday weekends are known to be a statistically more dangerous period on Irish roads and the gardaí implement bank holiday enforcement campaigns to target these periods of increased risk.
He said the force also carries out high profile 'days of action’ such as National Slow Down Day and the bank holiday road safety campaigns, not just to carry out enforcement but as a means of highlighting and promoting road safety.
Commissioner Kelly said there are also various operations which are not always publicised, but which are being conducted by gardaí nationwide on a day-to-day basis.
These include MIT (Mandatory Intoxication Testing) checkpoints which target drivers who are under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.
According to gardaí in 2025, officers carried out over 103,000 checkpoints equating to nearly 300 checkpoints every day.
It said over 8,100 drivers were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of an intoxicant.
There are also national days of action targeting the "lifesaver offences", including the use of mobile phones while driving and wearing of seatbelts, he said.
He added that there are also speed enforcement operations which include the use of static safety cameras and GoSafe cameras as well as overt and covert speed detections by gardaí on patrol.
Nearly 170,000 Fixed Charge Notices for speeding were issued in 2025, according to garda figures.
Mr Kelly also cited Operation Surround, which is a coordinated high-visibility garda presence that targets particular locations and Operation IOMPAR, targeting careless driving and enforcement on dual-carriageway and motorway networks.
He said An Garda Síochána has previously stated that we cannot solely rely on enforcement.
"A more complete approach that incorporates education and the engineering of both roads and vehicles is crucial.
"Educating people of all ages has the potential to help keep more people safe on or near our roads.
"Workplace briefings, school visits, speaking with third level classes - these conversations all make a difference."
