Gardaí have begun their annual crackdown on speeding, drink driving and non-wearing of seatbelts. The six-week campaign started at midnight.
Garda figures show that an estimated 11,344 people were arrested for drunk driving in 2003. Garda research shows that alcohol is the primary cause of 25 per cent of all road collisions and 33 per cent of fatal collisions.
Motorists have also been urged to comply with speed limits and although Garda figures show a slight fall in speeds, inappropriate speed remains the single greatest contributory factor to road deaths.
Gardaí have advised travellers to wear seatbelts and have called on motorists to more conscious of pedestrians and cyclists.
The Irish Cycling Campaign (ICC), however, strongly criticized the campaign.
Mr David Maher of the ICC said it was "simply a disgrace that the National Safety Council (NSC) and the gardai are again peddling the same old lies to cover up their own dismal failure to tackle deaths on Irish roads."
"Enforcement is the key, yet the only time the public ever see a garda in relation to the enforcement of traffic laws is on the television," he said.
"The statistics speaks for themselves. 75,000 speeding tickets were issued last year and 15,000 people underwent a breath test. Therefore, a motorist can expect a speeding ticket every 28 years and to be breathalyzed every 140 years," he added. "Ireland remains Europe's wild west in terms of enforcement. Nowhere in the western world is it safer to speed or drink drive. The incompetence and arrogance of the government and the NSC is breathtaking — we still have no traffic corp, no random breath testing, no new speed cameras and a dysfunctional computer system, yet the NSC seem surprised that road deaths are again rising."
Mr Maher added: "The lack of enforcement on our roads is getting worse not better. The number of speeding tickets issued annually has dropped by 80% since the introduction of penalty points, which is great for saving on paperwork, but tragic in terms of lives lost."
"Clearly, road safety comes bottom of the list for both the gardai and the government, who seem to be determined to use PR stunts to give the impression the issue is being tackled while failing to keep killers off our roads," he concluded.