Ireland has been ranked fourth in a league of EU holiday destinations with the most dangerous roads. The study of 14 EU countries, released by the RAC Foundation, found Greece had the worst road safety record, followed by Portugal, Spain and Ireland.
The foundation expressed surprise at Ireland's ranking as the fourth most dangerous country in terms of accidents and fatalities per kilometre. "We would not have expected Ireland to be up there," said RAC Foundation director Edmund King.
"I mean obviously in Greece the road infrastructure is not particularly well developed, whereas Ireland, certainly in the last few years, a lot of money, a lot of European money, has gone into the road infrastructure and roads have been improved quite considerably. Hopefully in this year and the years to come the accident records will actually be reduced as a reflection of the improved infrastructure."
As hundreds of thousands of motorists head abroad on holidays, Mr King urged drivers not to slip into holiday mode and take risks behind the wheel.
"Basically we are giving out advice to people who visit Ireland to really take care on the roads and not just take it for granted because the figures clearly show compared to the UK - England, Wales and Scotland - that the fatalities statistics proportionately are much higher."
But the RAC found Irish drivers were among the least aggressive motorists in the EU.
The study put French drivers at the top of the road-rage league table, with 60 per cent admitting to behaving aggressively towards other road users.
"When you ask people how they felt about other drivers, and whether they were annoyed by other drivers, Ireland came top of the league with 82 per cent of respondents saying other drivers on the roads in Ireland annoyed them. So perhaps the other drivers don't take it out in road rage in aggressive action but under their breath they are cursing the other drivers around them," he said.
German motorists were most likely to flash their headlights and tailgate, while UK motorists resorted to hand signals. - (PA)