Intoxicated driving: 137 motorists arrested over the bank holiday weekend

A total of 137 motorists have been arrested for intoxicated driving over the Bank Holiday weekend.

So far this year 80 people have died on Irish roads, the worst on record in a decade.

Dozens of motorists were breathalysed at the scene of a Garda road safety checkpoint on the M7 near Nenagh, Co Tipperary, on Monday morning.

While reporters were interviewing gardaí at the checkpoint, officers arrested a man on suspicion of committing an offence under the Road Traffic Act, and transported him to a nearby garda station.

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Inspector Noel Barry, Tipperary and Clare Garda Roads Policing, said gardaí were “checking for alcohol or drugs and any other offences that might be disclosed” and, he said the high numbers of arrests this weekend were “in line” with last year’s arrest figures.

“Over the weekend we have had people arrested for intoxicated driving, the figure until 7am this morning was 137 people arrested for alcohol and or drug driving, and we expect that figure will probably climb over 24 hours also,” Insp Barry said.

Inspector Barry passed on his condolences to the family of a pedestrian killed on the N18 at Portdrine, Co Clare around 4am Saturday, as well as thoughts to the family of a male youth who was in a critical condition in hospital, following a single-vehicle road traffic collision near Swinford, Co Mayo, 4am, Monday.

“Unfortunately the figures (for road deaths) for quarter one this year were very high, we’ve had 80 road deaths, that’s 80 families and friends, motorists, pedestrians, all affected by this,” said Insp Barry.

However, the trend in high numbers of road deaths was “starting to plateau” from the second quarter of this year, “so we are hoping that trend will continue”, Insp Barry added.

His appeal to road users, particularly motorists, is a simple one: “We want the public to pay attention and help us to bring that (death) trend down.”

“The main message we have is for motorists to be a bit more cognisant of their driving,” he said.

Inspector Barry described speeding, the non wearing of seat-belts, and using mobile phones whilst driving as “lethal” offences.

“All those contribute to accidents on the roads, and they take the driver’s attention away from their own driving and other roads users.”

“We are appealing to road users to think twice before you press the accelerator or pick up the phone. Please put your seat belt on, and don’t have that drink and drive.”

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Gardaí are also looking at implementing a system whereby motorists with dash cam footage of road traffic offences will be able to upload the footage to an online portal system to allow gardaí check it and possibly use it in road traffic prosecutions.

“It’s part of our operation, we are embracing technology, we have our garda mobility app where every car that comes into (the checkpoint) is checked, to make sure everything is in order, if there are any alerts in relation to disqualified drivers, or other criminal alerts, are notified to our members here,” said Inspector Barry.

“We also have ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition) technology, monitoring the vehicles that come into the checkpoint and they will send alerts too, so anything that’s comes into the end of the slipway will be pulled in and whether it is disqualified drivers, or a crime alert, we will deal with it.”