Calls to tackle ‘mayhem’ on roads as 2,600 caught speeding

THE GOVERNMENT has been urged to tackle the ‘mayhem’ on our roads as over 170 people were arrested for drug or drink driving over the Easter bank holiday weekend and more than 2,600 motorists were detected speeding.

Three people died in road incidents over the weekend, while 13 serious collisions resulting in people receiving serious or life-threatening injuries were recorded between Thursday morning and 7am yesterday.

Fifty-eight people have died on Irish roads so far this year, 16 more than in the same period in 2023.

Chief Superintendent Jane Humphries, of the Garda National Roads Policing Bureau, said gardaí are seeing ‘extremely dangerous driving behaviour that must be stopped’. She said: ‘Gardaí nationwide continue do all they can to ensure road users are safe and that those who break road traffic laws are detected, but the issues on our roads at present require the attention of every single person.

‘Every driver is responsible for their own driving behaviour – there is no excuse whatsoever to get behind the wheel of a car under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.’

She also advised drivers to ‘keep your eyes always on the road’.

Incoming Taoiseach Simon Harris warned this week that the progress on safety made in recent years is in danger of being reversed. He intends to meet gardaí and the Road Safety Authority in the coming weeks in a bid to reduce the carnage.

Vakaris Gudaitis, 17, was among those who died on our roads at the weekend. He lost his life on Saturday after he was hit by a car on the N17 in Co. Mayo. Also, on Friday, pregnant mother-of-one Claire Kavanagh, 37, died after a crash on the N24 in Co. Tipperary, while Gar Fennelly, in his 60s, lost his life after he was knocked off his bike in Co. Kildare on Sunday.