ROAD users are creating “lethal” scenarios on Irish roads by continuing to drive while using their mobile phones or consuming alcohol and drugs, Gardaí in Limerick warned.
So far this year, 165 people have been killed on Irish roads. Responding to the tragic figure, Gardaí advised road users to slow down, stop watching their mobile devices, and to take heed of weather warnings.
Gardaí across 2024 have issued over 20,500 fixed charge notices for driving whilst using a mobile phone, Garda Roads Policing Inspector Pairic Sutton told reporters at a Garda checkpoint at Limerick’s Condell Road as part of a national Garda Road Safety Campaign running until January 6.
“Our covert ability, such as the number of our unmarked vehicles, have been strengthened, and those drivers that use phones are distracted whilst they are driving, watching some television programme on a phone or other device in the vehicle – it is absolutely lethal,” said Inspector Sutton.
“We have increased our unmarked vehicle capability and the chances of you getting apprehended whilst doing this now have significantly increased.
“We all see it, that driver who is looking down in traffic towards the floor of the vehicle, they are on a mobile phone.”
Inspector Sutton, of Henry Street Garda Station, said that drink and drug driving remained a big concern with “over 7,000 people arrested on suspicion” since the start of this year.
The Garda inspector said that since the start of the nationwide road safety campaign on December 1, “93 people have been arrested on suspicion of drink-driving with alcohol, and a further 41 people have been arrested on suspicion of driving whilst under the influence of drugs”.
Appealing for people to take heed of their behaviour on the roads, particularly during weather alerts, Inspector Sutton said neither he nor his colleagues want the grim task of having to call to a person’s house to tell them their loved one had been killed on the roads.
“I certainly don’t want to go to a house this Christmas to tell a family, a mother or father or brother or sister, that someone belonging to them was killed on the roads.”
So far this year, Gardaí have conducted over 100,000 checkpoints, he said, and since the start of the road safety campaign “we have had one fatality”.
“Last year we had seven fatalities in the Limerick Garda Division, this year we have had five, but the ideal scenario is none.”
Inspector Sutton said Gardaí have seized “over 24,250 vehicles from our roadways, from people driving with no insurance, no licence, or from unaccompanied learner driver’s driving without a full licence driver in the vehicle” already in 2024.
Garda technology is now more advanced than ever and systems such as an insurance app and number plate recognition technology, Inspector Sutton said, will activate in Garda cars fitted with the system and alert Gardaí “if you have no insurance”.
“Our message to road users is that we are out, we are out in quite significant numbers, and these checkpoints will be a regular feature that you will see,” said Insp Sutton.
