Gardaí target persistent speeding

A small proportion of drivers who continue to offend against road safety rules are to be targeted in the latest pan-European crackdown on speeding that gets under way on Monday next.

Members of the Garda National Traffic Bureau are to take part in a week long focus on detecting speeding drivers, ahead of an even more stringent crackdown for the May bank holiday weekend.

Announcing the moves today, Assistant Commissioner Kevin Ludlow said each Garda division would take part and success - in comparison to European colleagues - would be measured in the numbers of "fixed notice" penalties imposed on errant drivers.

Most EU countries as well as Norway, Switzerland and Serbia are to take part in the crackdown, the first pan-European exercise to focus on speed this year.

The week will culminate in a bank holiday weekend crackdown on drink and drug driving, the non-use of seatbelts and breaches of road transport legislation.

Assistant Commissioner Ludlow said it was worrying that in the last six days seven people had lost their lives on the State's roads.

While the trend was downwards - some 57 people lost their lives on the State's roads so far this year, 12 fewer than the similar period in 2009 - the assistant commissioner said statistics were of little comfort to the families of the 57 killed.

He said there were many reasons for fatal errors while driving - lapse of concentration, inexperience or inability to manage at inappropriate speed or when something goes wrong. But he said there was a section of society that "doesn't see the television advertisements, doesn't buy the newspapers" and was very hard to reach.

During the May bank holiday last year 345 people were arrested for drunk driving, and six people died in crashes. During this year's Easter weekend, the last bank holiday, some 200 people were arrested for drunk driving.

Of the numbers who lost their lives so far this year 16 were involved in crashes between midnight and 4am, with seven between 6am and 8am. Eight people died between 6pm. and 8pm, representing about 10 per cent of all traffic fatalities. Chief Superintendent Gabriel McIntyre ascribed the latter figure to longer-distance commuters returning from work and suffering from fatigue.

About one third of those who lost their lives so far this year have been pedestrians, a significant number of whom were walking at night on rural roads.

Sgt Jim McAllister of the Garda Road Safety Unit particularly warned of the dangers of middle-aged men returning to motorbiking during the summer. He said motorbikes were often "mothballed for the winter alongside the driver's skills". He said the important to thing to remember for all drivers was "if you make a mistake there is a strong possibility that someone will be killed".

Enforcement of legislation around digital tachographs will form a part of the crackdown on errant hauliers, the Garda said. Lorries will be stopped and where it is not safe to interview the drivers they will be directed to planned locations elsewhere.