Debate contribution: Traffic Collision Sites: Privacy and Dignity

Debate contribution by Ms Emma Sheerin on 8 December 2025.

MLA

Ms Emma Sheerin

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

8 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Traffic Collision Sites: Privacy and Dignity

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5284948

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the motion and thank my constituency colleague for moving it. As Mr McGlone outlined, motions have been passed with cross-party support by a number of councils, including our own Mid Ulster District Council. We hope to see that replicated here today, because it would be important legislation. I commend the campaigners, particularly the O'Brien family, some of whom, I know, have travelled here today. Their quest to see the harm caused to them as a family not repeated for others is admirable. They should be commended for their work. As we will hear throughout the debate, road traffic accidents and fatalities are all too regular an occurrence. We are coming into a time of the year when we seem to hear about more and more accidents on our roads. Every life lost on our roads is a tragedy, and that hurt, pain and grief is compounded and exacerbated by the unnecessary sharing of images and videos on social media. I approach the conversation almost with disbelief. I cannot really believe that we need legislation to stop people doing that. I want to believe that it is a lack of awareness — ignorance — rather than malice that causes someone to whip out their phone when they come upon a road accident to do anything other than call emergency services. Unfortunately, however, we too often see circumstances in which that happens. We talk an awful lot in the Chamber about the dangers of social media and about how toxic it can be when it is not used for good. This is an example of something that causes untold damage and harm; that is completely unnecessary; and that feeds into a culture of people seeing likes, hits and other forms of attention as more important than basic human decency and kindness.

Even while we wait for legislation to be put in place — we know that implementing it properly and policing it will be complex and that it needs to be thorough and well thought out — and work towards that, we can send a clear message from the Chamber today, asking people to think in the wake of a road traffic accident and not to take pictures or videos of people in their most vulnerable moments. Doing that adds absolutely nothing in such a situation; no one adds any value by taking photos or videos of that. People need to cop on a bit and to think carefully before they start filming something like that. The message that we need to send today, even while we wait for legislation to be put in place, is this: everyone needs to think seriously about how their actions can impact on a family in their worst moments. There has been a spate of measures, and the Infrastructure Minister is working on road safety measures. There have been a number of losses on our roads in recent years, and we want to see that reduced. We want all road users to think carefully when they are out and about. The motion is about just a small element of that that should be common sense. It should not even have to be said, but it is important that we all say it clearly today.

540 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:11 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification