Driver error has been blamed for yesterday morning's motorway crashes in which up to 60 vehicles were involved in a series of crashes in dense fog on the M7 and M9 in Co Kildare.
Gardaí and motoring organisations called for a change in drivers' behaviour after one of the worst pile-ups in the history of the State resulted in 27 people being hospitalised.
The crashes occurred just before 9am when a lorry crashed into the back of a car transporter, causing a series of accidents over five kilometres on two stretches of motorway between Kildare and Naas.
The Health Service Executive immediately ordered the implementation of a major emergency plan to cope with the incident.
Five people were recovering at Naas General Hospital last night. One woman, who crashed into the back of a fire engine which was travelling to the scene, was in a critical condition.
A sixth patient was transferred to Tallaght Hospital yesterday afternoon. Naas was the only receiving hospital for the 27 casualties from the motorway pile-up.
The pile-ups caused the closure of the busy northbound carriages of the M7 (from Limerick and Cork) and M9 (from Kilkenny and Waterford) leading to long tailbacks. Many motorists were stranded for hours as tow-away services were slow to arrive on the scene because of the number of accidents.
Sgt Gerry Goode, the division traffic sergeant for Carlow/Kildare, said it was an "absolute miracle" that yesterday's pile-up had not resulted in multiple fatalities.
One motorist survived even though his car was crushed by a cement lorry which had overturned on top of it.
Sgt Goode said the crashes occurred because motorists had been driving too fast in bad visibility. "If drivers had maintained their distance and driven according to the conditions, this wouldn't have happened. People just don't seem to be slowing down and maintaining a proper distance."
AA Roadwatch public affairs spokesman Conor Faughnan said motorway driving was a relatively new experience in Ireland and more incidents like this would occur if drivers did not change their behaviour.
"What we saw yesterday was Ireland's first authentic motorway pile-up," he said. "When incidents like these happen on the Continent they can extend for miles and affect thousands of people, but because our motorway network is relatively new, we are not used to it.
"As a nation, we have to learn the discipline of motorway driving. They are statistically the safest roads we've got, but when circumstances are less than ideal as they were yesterday, motorists must slow down."
Mr Faughnan denied suggestions that the fog warnings given by AA Roadwatch were inadequate. "The weather yesterday morning was not particularly unusual. There were plenty of warnings."
He said that motorway driving would become part of the compulsory training for provisional drivers as envisaged in the new road safety strategy due later this year.
Road Safety Authority chief executive Noel Brett said the authority had included an enhanced section on motorway driving in the recently published Rules of the Road to take account of the new road network.
"There has been phenomenal investment in the road infrastructure and that means a lot of drivers are having their first experiences of motorway driving," Mr Brett said.
Drivers should not need a reminder to slow down when there was thick fog "at the end of their bumper", he said.
"You wouldn't run down the street with your eyes closed, so why would you drive at ten times that speed if you couldn't see what is in front of you? It is ultimately a matter of personal responsibility."
George Little, accident and emergency department consultant at Naas General Hospital, said the accident site was a scene of "utter devastation" spread out over a five-kilometre area. "It was extremely difficult for the pre-hospital services to actually get in to the injured patients because cars were on fire."