A top Garda has warned that young Irish people are still speeding and drink driving at dangerous levels, despite some hard-hitting public service campaigns.
Chief Superintendent Aidan Reid spoke on Morning Ireland on Wednesday and revealed how certain drivers have been caught speeding at 157km/h, while others have been found intoxicated on both drink and drugs the morning after.
“There seems to be a shift back to the bad old days, young persons in particular are over represented in this category both for drunk driving and for speeding,” he said.
Incredibly, 719 people were arrested in the month of July for being intoxicated at the wheel. A reminder that this is 2016.
“Yesterday in Limerick we had a driver driving at 157 km/h which is absolute madness.
“We’ve had people caught taking drugs, intoxicated driving in the morning time at 10 o’clock in Ennis. We’ve had people arrested at 8am in Sligo for drink driving, the morning after. So An Garda Síochána have been out in force in July since this recent study, and despite this 719 people arrested in July.”
Over the Bank Holiday weekend alone, 165 people in the country were arrested, with Reid warning that significant penalties could mean people not getting visas to travel to the United States, among other consequences.
“We’ve reached out, we have been out there, we have continuously sent the message out. It’s not all bad news – across Europe, we’re fifth best, we’ve made significant strides, until last week Donegal had one fatality for the year, unfortunately the number in the last week was five.”
He also said that new technology is coming out to detect if people are not wearing seatbelts or using their mobile phones while driving.
“Distracted driving is an issue. Our focus has been that drink driving is not culturally acceptable. The cohort is young drivers, maybe with disposable incomes; we are focusing on that, we will continue to do that. We want people to enjoy the holiday, keep within speed limit and never ever drink and drive.”
