Gardai fail to catch speeders - waste time on EU leaders and Bush instead

national | crime and justice | other press Thursday August 26, 2004 19:48 by Road fodder

Irish Independent article by Treacy Hogan

There has been a dramatic drop in the number of speeders caught. This coincides with an increase in the number of road deaths. The Garda say it's because their manpower is spent minding Bush and EU leaders. The DoT says everything is fine and that speeding has decreased (when actually the DETECTION of speeding has decreased).

Gardai 'too busy' with VIPs to nab speeders

SPEEDING motorists are getting away with murder on our roads, as new figures reveal a huge drop in numbers of offenders being caught by gardai.

Unpublished Garda figures obtained by the Irish Independent show that 89,380 drivers were caught for speeding in the first six months of this year.

This is a full 24,230 fewer than the 113,610 nabbed during the same period in 2003 - a drop of 21pc.

Gardai have admitted fewer motorists were caught for speeding because traffic officers were tied up with the EU presidency and the visit of President Bush.

The fall in speeding detections coincides with an equally dramatic increase in road deaths in the first six months of the year compared with last year.

Supt John Farrelly said diversion of gardai to the EU presidency "impacted" on speed detections, the figures for which were compiled for this newspaper by the Garda National Traffic Policy Bureau.

Supt Farrelly admitted there had been a cut in full time officers on traffic duties during the EU presidency. "It's true. Motorcycle 'traffic bikes' were put on EU duties. That's called policy prioritisation . . . I would admit that the EU had an impact on it."

He claimed the fall in detections was also due to improved driver behaviour due to the penalty points. Fine Gael's transport spokesman Denis Naughten last night called for immediate establishment of a dedicated Garda traffic corps in the wake of the revelations. "There has to be a traffic corps. It was the EU presidency for six months when gardai were dragged away from road safety duties, next time it will be something else."

He said road deaths fell after the introduction of penalty points, but had risen sharply again. "This is because of the lack of resources provided to gardai to properly enforce the penalty points system," he added, calling for highly visible speed cameras on dangerous sections of road.

Niall Doyle, Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) corporate affairs manager, blamed the time gardai have to spend processing penalty point speeding tickets and the EU presidency for the cut in speed checks.

He said gardai were spending longer on paperwork because of failure to have in place a computerised penalty points system.

A Department of Transport spokesperson said last night preliminary findings from the National Roads Authority 2003 survey of speeds showed a decrease in speeding car drivers.

In urban residential areas the number speeding in 30mph zones was more than halved, from 61pc in 2002 to 36pc in 2003.

A total of 158,910 penalty points notices had been issued since the system came in in November 2002.

Treacy Hogan
Environment Correspondent