The enforcement of road traffic legislation by gardaí needs to be assessed to ensure greatly increased levels of speeding detections translate into safer driving and fewer deaths, delegates at the AGSI annual conference have been told.
Sgt Richard Lyons, who is in charge of the Garda road transport unit based in Dublin Castle, said the force needed to get away from the system of putting gardaí under pressure to catch as many motorists speeding as possible and instead concentrate on ways of genuinely making the roads safer.
Sgt Lyons told delegates it was not enough for the force simply to target an increase in the number of speeding detections every year. If Garda road traffic policy was working and the roads were becoming safer, there would be a fall-off in detections, he said.
It was now time to develop a mechanism to measure how different enforcement policies affected road safety.
The most effective methods could be replicated nationwide and policies that did not bring about greater compliance could be abandoned.
He said that in 1999, 2000 and 2001, the number of deaths on Irish roads was 411, 415 and 413 respectively. Yet during this three-year period the annual number of speeding detections increased from 178,000 to 272,000. This proved current policy was not making the roads safer and that it was "flawed".
"If we are to remain a credible, community-based service we need to change and change urgently the way we do our business in relation to traffic enforcement.
"A young guard under pressure for returns giving an 80-year-old lady a ticket in Kevin St rather than caution her because she forgot her seat-belt does not represent the organisation I joined," he said.
He said there should be small traffic units in each region which would exclusively enforce road traffic legislation in relation to lorries.
Sgt Eugene O'Sullivan from Sneem, Co Kerry, proposed a motion calling on the AGSI national executive to lobby for the upgrading of the Garda communication system and for members on patrol to be issued with mobile phones.
Currently the communications system was so bad that gardaí were using their own mobiles to communicate with each other while on duty and were doing so at their own expense.
The motion, which was passed, suggested that members refuse to use their own mobiles while on duty if the communication system was not improved in the long term. This would mean they could not be contacted by their colleagues and, in effect, the public.