Nearly 600 drivers caught speeding during national Garda operation

Gardaí have appealed to drivers to slow down, after its 24-hour national speed enforcement operation detected 592 vehicles travelling above the speed limit.

GoSafe vans, contracted by An Garda Síochána, checked the speed of more than 225,000 vehicles on December 23rd, National Slow Down Day, with 0.26 per cent found to be speeding.

The campaign caught one driver travelling 92km/h in a 50km/hr zone in Tullamore, Offaly, and a motorist on the N71 in Cork doing 146km/h in a 100km/h area.

At the start of the Christmas weekend, a Garda spokesman said the force continues to appeal to drivers to comply with speed limited to reduce the number of speed-related collisions, save lives and reduce injuries on Irish roads.

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The latest Garda data shows some 141,600 motorists were caught speeding in the months up to the start of November.

Eleven more deaths this month have brought the number of people killed on Irish roads so far this year to 156, which is 28 more than by this time last year and 20 more than over the same period in 2019.

A Road Safety Authority spokeswoman said the organisation is “very mindful” that nine people died on the roads between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. In the same period, a further 30 people suffered serious injuries in road crashes.

People killed in road deaths this year include 40 pedestrians, 62 drivers, 22 passengers, 23 motorcyclists, seven cyclists and one motorcyclist passenger.

November and March have been the deadliest months of this year, with 17 people killed in each of those months.

The provisional figures also show more than 16,000 people were spotted driving while using their mobile phones and about 5,300 were caught without seat belts up to the end of October. Nearly 7,500 intoxicated drivers were detected up to the start of December.