Gardaí are calling on motorists to support today’s 24-hour nationwide operation targeting speed, known as ‘Slow Down Day’, to make Irish roads safer for all users.
Just four months into 2024, already 63 people have been killed on roads in Ireland. That is 14 more lives lost than on this same day last year.
Today’s initiative, which is supported by the Road Safety Authority (RSA), is to promote safer driving behaviour among motorists and to encourage all of society to help prevent road traffic collisions.
It is being run in conjunction with other European jurisdictions to encourage drivers to lower their speed, Supt Liam Geraghty has said.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said gardaí are asking people to drive at the appropriate speed for the road and traffic conditions.
“The call today is the same as it is everyday,” Supt Geraghty said.
“We’ve seen too many fatalities on our roads last year and again so far this year. Thankfully, in the last week, or a little bit longer, we haven’t had a fatal road traffic collision on our roads, but we are still seeing serious road traffic collisions taking place.
“Unfortunately, the trend is going in the wrong direction.”
Today’s garda operation will centre on high visibility speed enforcement activity across Ireland’s road network.
Supt Geraghty added: “Every day, it is a serious responsibility when you go out in a vehicle and are driving on our roads. We call on everybody to make our roads a safer place every day.”
In relation to the directive for gardaí to carry out 30 minutes of high visibility roads policing on each shift, Supt Geraghty said the Garda Commissioner recognised the significant volume of work that frontline personnel are already contributing to road safety.
“What international experience and the Swedish model of traffic policing would show is that the presence of a police officer, a high visibility presence of a police officer, at a particular location modifies driver behaviour, not just during the period of that presence, but for a significant period after the presence of that police officer for up to a number of hours.”
Supt Geraghty said that the 30 minutes is not at the expense of other duties.
“The instruction to gardaí is to find 30 minutes where they are highly visible at a particular location or a particular area to encourage modification of people’s use of the roads in that area at that time, which will then have a longer lasting effect.”
