Ross one of 856 drivers breathalysed
TRANSPORT Minister Shane Ross was breathalysed on Friday night by gardai as part of a 72-hour bank holiday road-safety blitz following the deaths of 13 people since last Sunday.
Minister Ross, who has not drank alcohol in 25 years, passed the roadside test — one of 856 carried out on Friday night. There was one arrest.
He praised gardai for their response to a week of appalling tragedy on Irish roads and issued a plea to motorists to reduce speed and never drink and drive.
Speaking about being breathalysed at a checkpoint, Minister Ross said: “I think it reflects very well on gardai. They are responding superbly to what is an absolutely awful series of tragedies.”
The comments came on the busiest weekend of the year on Irish roads, with a huge number of festivals and sports events going on around the country worth an estimated €70m to the hospitality trade.
Ports and airports were at full capacity as thousands travelled on foreign holidays.
It came as Irish women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant have been advised not to travel to Florida in the wake of reports of locally transmitted incidents of the Zika virus.
Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said: “I’m advising women who are pregnant and those trying to become pregnant to consider postponing travel arrangements to Florida.”
Florida is one of the top three travel destinations for Irish holidaymakers — with bookings up 6pc this year.
A WEEK of carnage has prompted gardai to launch a 72-hour nationwide road safety blitz following the death of 13 people since last Sunday.
While gardai will mostly be on the lookout for speeding and drink drivers, all traffic offences, including seatbelt compliance, will be targeted.
Checkpoints will be operated on routes across the country, from Dublin to Galway, Cork, Limerick and on other major arteries.
Dublin Traffic Corp tested 856 drivers at 11 mandatory alcohol testing checkpoints on Friday night. One driver was arrested for drink driving and five vehicles were seized.
Superintendent Aidan Reid, of the Garda National Traffic Bureau, said that drink drivers remain a key area of concern and are being specifically targeted.
A woman driver became the 13th road death in just days on Friday night when her car careered off the road into a field.
This latest fatality brings to 107 the number of people who have died on Irish roads since January.
Twenty people have been killed to date in July alone, meaning road deaths are up over 18pc on last year.
The latest accident occurred near Miltown Malbay in Co Clare at around 11pm.
The woman, who was believed to be from Quilty in the county was the only occupant of the car.
The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has now demanded that the Government increases the number of gardai in the traffic corps.
RSA chairperson Liz O’Donnell has appealed to Transport Minister Shane Ross for his support on adequate resourcing of visible policing.
“We do need more visible policing and we discussed this at length with the minister this week. We need his support to get the resources for road policing back up there.”
Some 597 people have been arrested on suspicion of drink driving since the beginning of July.
Cork was the worst county for drink driving deaths, official figures showed.
Galway was next, followed by Dublin, Donegal and Cavan.
Sunday remained the most dangerous day on Irish roads, while the greatest number of deaths were among those aged 16-25 and 66 and older.
Some 76pc of drivers killed are men, with younger drivers accounting for 25pc of all deaths.
Those aged 66 and older are the next highest at risk, according to the RSA.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that gardai hit drivers with nearly a thousand traffic prosecutions every day.
Figures for 2015 also showed that 623,318 drivers have penalty points at the end of last month, with around 17,000 with seven or more points and on the verge of six-month disqualification.
Last week garda speed camera vans were parked at spots on some of the biggest ‘catch’ points, such as the point on the M4 where the motorway speed limit reduces suddenly from 120kmh to 80kmh at Lucan.
While the official line is that the speed camera vans are deployed only in locations that have had fatal accidents, local gardai said there has never been any fatalities at this point on the M4.
Similarly, the vans and other speed traps are often located at motorway slip roads and stretches of otherwise safe roads where speed limits reduce suddenly.
Speeding is the main factor in most fatal accidents, and last week’s nine deaths included seven people in their twenties killed on country roads as well as two men in their thirties and forties.
Garda sources told the Sunday Independent yesterday that despite the preponderance of deaths in known blackspots, there is still a tendency for traffic corps gardai to ‘shoot fish in a barrel’ — by which he meant putting speed cameras on busy motorway or urban roads, despite the fact there are little or no fatalities at those spots.