Gardaí have warned motorists they will be mounting a major road safety campaign across the country over this Bank Holiday weekend, including so-called drink-driving “super checkpoints” in Dublin.
While the overall number of people killed on the Republic’s roads is down more than 40 on the similar period last year, an average of almost five people lost their lives on the State’s roads on the October bank holiday weekend over the past nine years.
Almost one third of them were vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.
Dublin is the focus of the Garda’s weekend effort because the number of road deaths in the capital this year, at 19, is down only one on the same period last year. The fall in fatalities has been more pronounced in other parts of the country.
The Garda’s Operation Surround will be one of the biggest operations against drink-driving to date. Drink-driving checkpoints will be established at 16 key routes in and out of Dublin this evening in the area between the two canals.
The traffic corps said the operation would be high-visibility with a view to impressing on motorists driving home for the weekend that gardaí were out in force targeting drink-driving.
Over the rest of the holiday weekend, large teams of gardaí will saturate target areas and all motorists stopped at these super-checkpoints will face mandatory breath testing.
The checkpoints, which will be manned by large teams of gardaí, will operate for a number of hours in certain areas before moving on to new locations.
Marked and unmarked Garda cars will also patrolling and Garda speed checks will be out across Dublin city and county at the weekend.
Motorists have also been warned to be especially vigilant when the clocks go back next Sunday, and it will get darker earlier in the evenings.
Some 189 people have been killed on the roads so far this year, down from 235 in the same period last year.