A PLANNED GARDA road safety strategy for Dublin is to be geared at protecting vulnerable road users who make up just over 61 per cent of road deaths in the capital.
Vulnerable road users comprising pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists accounted for more than 200 of the 329 people killed on roads in the Garda’s Dublin Metropolitan Region since 2001.
While road deaths in the capital have been falling by as much as 12 per cent year on year, members of the Garda National Traffic Bureau will meet the Road Safety Authority today to discuss the new strategy which will focus on speed, impaired driving and aggressive driver behaviour.
Over the coming months, motorists in Dublin and elsewhere can expect marked and unmarked Garda cars to mingle with traffic using new Puma on-board computers which automatically read the number plates of nearby vehicles.
Puma can identify untaxed or uninsured vehicles and record issues such as aggressive driving or speeding.
This week Puma is being used extensively by gardaí in all divisions as part of a pan-European crackdown on speeding, involving the EU, Norway, Switzerland and Serbia. Assistant commissioner Kevin Ludlow said each Garda division would take part and success – in comparison to European colleagues – would be measured in the numbers of “fixed notice” penalties imposed on errant drivers.
In the Garda’s Dublin metropolitan region, gardaí will also deploy Operation Lockdown and Operation Surround to target drink and drug driving.
Operation Lockdown comprises 16 checkpoints within the canal ring and a further 16 beyond. Operation Lockdown is intended to capture drink-drivers leaving the city in the evening.
Operation Surround targets urban villages. Gardaí have specifically mentioned Santry, Blackrock and Tallaght where people are likely to socialise, particularly at weekends.
The operation will see road blocks at every access road to the urban village. The operation is to be highly mobile moving to different urban villages on each weekend.
The Garda said analysis of children’s injuries after collisions indicated a significant number of parents were not insisting on proper safety seats or seat belts for children in the back seat of cars.
Also yesterday, AXA Insurance also issued a plea to road users to exercise extra caution during the May bank holiday weekend. It pointed out that almost half of road deaths deaths occurred at weekends, with Sunday being the most dangerous day of the year in 2009.
