Six people killed in weekend of road carnage

ROAD safety chiefs have urged all road users to take greater care after a weekend of unprecedented carnage.

Four people died in three car smashes in the early hours of yesterday morning. Their deaths brought to six the number of people killed on the Republic's roads since Friday night.

Since January 1, deaths on our roads total 27 more than one a day. Statistically, January is among the "safest" months of the year.

Expressing concern at the mounting toll, the National Safety Council acting head Alan Richardson said if they did nothing, "well over 400 people will be killed this year."

"What is needed is to implement the penalty points strategy so we can make an imprint on driver behaviour.

"We would like to see more visible presence of the gardaí, but we recognise with 96,000km of road there is too much road network for them to make a significant difference in the short term," he said.

When penalty points were introduced in November 2002, Mr Richardson recalled, road deaths fell to 21 a month and the effect had lasted until the following March.

Meanwhile, gardaí have released the names of the two people killed near Carraroe, Connemara, Co Galway. Mairtín Anthony Keane, 19, from Derrartha, Carraroe and Áine Ní Conghaille, 18, from Trá Bhan, Leitir Mór, died when their car struck a wall around midnight yesterday.

Post mortem examinations were carried out on the bodies at University College Hospital, Galway.

Two men from the Czech Republic working in Co Mayo killed in a single car crash early on Sunday morning, were named as Filip Marecek, 31, and Peter Valasek, 34.

They had been travelling from Ballaghaderreen towards Charlestown when their car left the road and struck a tree at Laveymore, a mile from Charlestown.

Gardaí have yet to release the names of two other road crash victims who died earlier yesterday.

In Co Louth, a 29-year-old man died after the car he was driving went through a railing of the Bridge of Peace in Drogheda and into the Boyne river. The crash happened at around 3am.

A 19-year-old motorist died in Co Wicklow shortly after midnight when his car hit a ditch at Ballinapark, Ashford.

Meanwhile, efforts are being made to tackle the driving test backlog. Some 80 of the 110 testers have signed up for additional work over the next 18 months.

Learner drivers wait an average of 42 weeks to be tested.