Gardai will be on lookout for drink-drivers over weekend

There will be no extra gardaí "pulled out of a drawer" to combat drink-driving over the bank holiday weekend, but those who drink and drive will be caught, the Garda has insisted.

Speaking at the National Safety Council's announcement of the October bank holiday Operation Taisteal yesterday, Chief Supt Denis Fitzpatrick of the Garda National Traffic Bureau said the force was determined to make inroads into the State's "major problem with \ driving while intoxicated".

He said that "drivers are not getting the message about drink-driving". While road deaths were at a 30-year low - 640 in 1972 to 376 last year - he attributed the reduction to increased compliance with speed and seat-belt regulations.

"The same levels of enforcement [year on year\] have returned fewer cases of speed and seat-belt offences, but the same levels of enforcement are returning the same number of detections for drink-driving."

The Garda contribution to this weekend's road safety campaign - which runs from midnight tonight until midnight on Monday - would be to "focus existing resources" on those who think they can drink and drive.

Mr Pat Costello, director of the National Safety Council, said about 230 drivers were arrested each week on suspicion of drink-driving and while 91 per cent were over the limit, an astonishing 51 per cent were more than twice the legal limit.

Meanwhile, is Dublin is to get its new directional signs next weekend. The original design was famously scrapped by the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, last summer. Six changes have been made:

junctions will be numbered one to 49 on the inner orbital and 50 upwards on the outer orbital;

Signs will now carry names of places as opposed to just road numbers;

There will be just one reference to other junctions besides the one to which the motorist is heading;

The new signs will have either a purple (outer) or blue (inner) background, depending on which orbital the motorist is following;

The "restriction" signs, such as no left turn, no right turn etc., have been removed on the grounds that they already feature on separate signs;

The overall amount of information on route numbers, directions, which at first glance was held to be confusing, has been restricted from 12 separate items to a maximum of seven.