Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy expressed hope that the new Garda policy of targeting some 400 roads with high levels of crashes will result in a significant reduction in road deaths.
"The analysis and trends have been looked at and quite clearly show where high numbers of fatalities occur and, as a result of that, we are now going to mount an equally high police presence in these areas.
"Hopefully this will bring about a reduction in the number of fatalities and serious collisions occurring in these zones," said Mr Conroy, who pointed to the success of random breath-testing in leading to a change in driver behaviour.
"Since the introduction of random breath-testing, deaths have begun to drop - it's early days yet but we are down 19 deaths on this time last year which is a good sign," he said.
Mr Conroy said that road deaths had similarly begun to drop before the introduction of penalty points and continued to drop for some months afterwards before people began to ignore the new legislation.
However, he said he firmly believed that driver behaviour was starting to change in Ireland and an increase in the national traffic corps to 1,200 would allow gardaí monitor the new "red zones" very closely. "The message I am getting from my people on the ground is that there is a huge change of attitude (towards drink driving). People are beginning to realise the seriousness of it and that if they are over the limit they will lose their licence," he said.
He was reluctant to commit himself to achieving any specific target in terms of reducing road fatalities but stressed it depended on gardaí obtaining the co-operation of the motoring public.
"It is a dangerous road to go down to say that we can achieve a particular reduction - we can only achieve that if the public co-operate with the various campaigns run by ourselves and the other agencies," he said.
Mr Conroy was speaking at the graduation ceremony at the Garda college in Templemore, Co Tipperary, for some 151 new gardaí. A number of serving officers received Scott medals for bravery.
Garda Nigel Bourke and Garda David Sweeney, both of Dundrum Garda station in Dublin, received Gold Scott medals and their colleague Garda Michelle Gethings received a Bronze Scott medal for foiling an armed raid in Dublin.
Also honoured with Bronze Scott medals were Garda Joseph Ryan of the regional traffic office in Dublin; now retired Det Garda James Donegan of Rathmines Garda station; Garda James Conway of Ballymun Garda station and Garda Peter Connolly of Clontarf Garda station.
