Crime & Law

Big increase in drivers caught using phones since new directive

RSA says high visibility roads policing initiative results in 42 per cent increase in breath tests, and 25 per cent increase in vehicles being seized

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris issued a directive to all uniformed Garda personnel to spend 30 minutes of each shift engaged in high visibility roads policing. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Conor Lally Security and Crime Editor
Mon Apr 29 2024 - 18:19

A significant increase in the number of people caught breaking the law on the roads was a direct result of Garda members being ordered to give at least 30 minutes of every shift to roads policing, Road Safety Authority (RSA) chairwoman Liz O’Donnell has said.

The number of people caught using mobile phones in the first 12 days of the directive was up just over 60 per cent.

Two weeks ago, amid increasing pressure over rising road deaths, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris issued a directive to all uniformed Garda personnel to spend 30 minutes of each shift engaged in some form of high visibility roads policing.

The move was criticised at the time, including by the Garda Representative Association (GRA) which said it was a public relations exercise based on statistics. The directive came at a time when the Garda had struggled to meet recruitment targets while the strength of Roads Policing Units had declined despite increased road fatalities.

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Ms O’Donnell said just 12 days into the new directive, there were strong signs it was working. She revealed there had been a 42 per cent increase in breath tests, and a 25 per cent increase in the number of vehicles being seized.

A 61 per cent increase had been recorded in the number of fixed charge notices (FCNs) being issued to drivers for mobile phone use and a 22 per cent rise in arrests for intoxicated driving.

“It just goes to show, when we have real visible enforcement, as we’ve had for the last 12 days since the Garda Commissioner introduced that change, it does make a difference,” Ms O’Donnell told RTÉ News at One. “And people have to feel that they are going to be caught doing those killer behaviours.”

The RSA has faced some criticism recently but Ms O’Donnell said it was fit for purpose although it needed more funding from the Department of Transport. It had not been able to “afford to do all of the actions and all of the major campaigns that are needed given the increase in fatalities”.

She was unable to give any breakdown of the main causes of road deaths this year, specifically whether speed was a factor, unroadworthy vehicles or poor road engineering.

“All we can talk about are trends,” she said. “It’s too early... all of those crashes this year are still under investigation so it’s not possible or fair to attribute blame or causation.”

She added “speed is always there” as a factor in many fatal crashes and she believed there had been “an increase in speeding right around the country”. She also cited the “four killer behaviours” of speeding, drink driving, not wearing a seat belt and mobile phone use.

Ms O’Donnell said those who were caught driving at very excessive speeds “should be suspended from driving” and she agreed with Mr Harris’s recent comments that “a fixed penalty isn’t enough”.

Late last year The Irish Times revealed the number of drivers being detected for flouting road traffic laws had been falling, and continued to decline in 2023.

Some 88,734 drink-driver breath tests were carried out to the end of last August, about half pre-pandemic detections recorded in 2018 and 2019. The number of arrests for drink-driving to last August was 3,071, down about one-quarter on the years between 2014 and 2018.

The number of gardaí assigned to roads policing has fallen by more than 100 since 2021 with a decline of 35 recorded since the beginning of last year. There were 641 gardaí in the Roads Policing Unit at the end of November last year, down from 688 in January 2023 and 692 at the end of 2022. By the end of February, the number had fallen to 627, just four higher than at the lowest point recorded in 2017.

The GRA did not comment on the latest figures, which originated with the Garda, but have been shared by the RSA.

Asked about the latest figures, the Garda said Mr Harris had last week spoken about road safety, and increased enforcement, at a public meeting of the Policing Authority in Limerick last week.

The reply to queries from Garda Headquarters added some 8,000 breath tests had been performed on drivers from April 12th to 24th, which was an increase of 42 per cent on the same period last month. The Garda also confirmed the other data released by Ms O’Donnell, saying the increase of 22 per cent in detections for intoxicated driving represented 344 detections in total.

“Members have been working hard and this has been making an impact in terms of our enforcement statistics but it goes much beyond that in terms of our involvement in the overall road safety strategy for Ireland,” the Garda added.

Conor Lally

Conor Lally

Conor Lally is Security and Crime Editor of The Irish Times

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