Gardaí are expecting to detect up to 3,000 motorists drink-driving and speeding over the bank holiday weekend, the head of the Garda Traffic Corps, Assistant Commissioner Eddie Rock, has said.
He dismissed suggestions that gardaí were setting speed traps on main roads with no history of bad accidents. National roads accounted for the "vast majority" of fatal accidents despite making up only 7 per cent of the roads network.
"Over the holiday weekend last August we had around 330 people arrested for drink-driving," he said. "Unless there's a significant change in their compliance culture, that number will probably be exceeded this year. Speed is an issue that we will be addressing more firmly over the next few months. During the August bank holiday weekend last year there was almost 2,500 people caught for speeding offences."
He said while drink-driving was a major concern for the Garda Traffic Corps, speed remained Ireland's "number one killer on the roads".
In the first half of this year there have been approximately 93,000 speeding detections. As the Garda Traffic Corps was assigned more resources, most of the manpower would be dedicated to speeding detections
"It's important for people to be aware that we are going to increase that issue of enforcement," Mr Rock said.
"Speed limits should not be viewed as a 'target' to be reached and drivers should always take account of road and weather conditions and adjust their speed accordingly."
He said while some motorists believed gardaí were "shooting fish in a barrel" by catching people speeding on motorways, the statistical analysis disproved this. Of the 44,000 speeding detections in the first quarter of the year, 600 were on motorways.
"Over 90 per cent of the motorway detections involved people who were considerably over the limit, that's 20km or more over the limit."
There had been 19,000 detections for drink-driving over the past 12 months and gardaí would be out in force again this weekend in an effort to increase compliance. "But it's a question of prioritising and there are limited resources."
More than 4,500 detected drink-driving incidents were recorded during the first quarter of the year, representing an increase of 27 per cent on 2006.
Mr Rock said the increase underlined the higher enforcement levels and the need for people to use a designated driver system when socialising.
He said many motorists were also continuing to use their mobile phones while driving. In the first half of the year 14,610 such detections had been made.
Mr Rock appealed to pedestrians to exercise care and wear high-visibility clothing. Some 49 of the 201 road fatalities so far this year involved pedestrians. Large numbers of pedestrians were not only being killed but were often badly injured.
Meanwhile, a report published yesterday by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) revealed that a high number of pedestrians killed on Irish roads are children. The research found 141 children under 14 years died on the roads between 1998 and 2005. Half of these were pedestrians. More than one-third were passengers in cars.
RSA chief executive Noel Brett said the findings underlined the need for children to be aware of the safe cross code and to wear high-visibility clothing. It was also important for children travelling in vehicles to use seat belts or child car seats. In addition to fatalities, some 5,732 children were injured on the roads in the period under review.