The Road Safety Authority says that it has received a "tremendous response" to its appeal to the public for suggestions on how to improve road safety.
The public consultation began on Tuesday and attracted immediate interest, according to Road Safety Authority (RSA) spokesman Brian Farrell.
"We've already had a huge amount of traffic on our website about this. We've had a number of submissions by e-mail and we've had numerous calls to our lo-call number from people wondering how to make a submission," he said. "We are delighted with the response to date."
Suggestions received so far relate to improving engineering on roads and in cars, stepping up policing and enforcement and providing motorists with more education and training.
This is the first time the public has been consulted on road safety strategy. The RSA is also consulting Government departments and agencies as well as other interest groups.
The road safety strategy, which will run from 2007 to 2011, is to be published next spring.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael claimed yesterday that the Government would be able to spend an extra €40 million a year on making the roads safer if it made a greater effort to catch the 10 per cent of motorists who evade motor tax.
Fergus O'Dowd, Fine Gael's environment spokesman, said that documents released by the Government showed that between €30 million and €40 million in motor tax went uncollected every year. "The large number of motorists getting away with not paying for road tax is a clear reflection of the Government's lack of commitment to the Garda Traffic Corps, which has still not reached full strength," he added.
Mr O'Dowd said that the uncollected money could be used to pay for the upgrading of regional roads, many of which were "sub-standard, filled with potholes and falling apart".
Mr O'Dowd was speaking after one of the worst ever weekends of road deaths. Eight people were killed in crashes in Monaghan, Kerry, Wexford and Roscommon.
Yesterday, gardaí named the 25-year-old man who was fatally injured in a crash in Co Roscommon on Sunday night. Patrick Spellman, from Boherbui, Ballaghaderreen, was a passenger in a car which went out of control on a bend at Doogra on the Ballaghaderreen to Charlestown road.
The fifth person to lose their life in a two-car crash on Saturday near Threemilehouse, Co Monaghan, is to be buried this morning. John McQuillan (27), Cabra, Threemilehouse, was a rear-seat passenger in a car carrying four people which was involved in a head-on collision with a car carrying one man. All five were friends and had been socialising together that night.
Mr McQuillan's four friends, aged between 19 and 21, died instantly. He sustained serious injuries from which he died on Monday evening. He will buried after 11am Mass at St Mary's Church, Threemilehouse.
