Unmarked cars to tackle speeding

GARDAÍ are to increase the use of unmarked patrol cars to clamp down on dangerous driving and speeding.

Assistant Garda Commissioner Eddie Rock, who has responsibility for traffic policing within the force, said this would lead to greater law enforcement measures over the coming years.

Mr Rock told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport yesterday that the use of high-visible garda patrol cars was less effective in tackling the problem of dangerous driving as motorists modified their behaviour when they saw garda vehicles on the road.

He said the use of covert vehicles would address the problem of motorists who drove with “a downright ignorant behaviour”.

Mr Rock expressed concern that levels of drink driving and speeding among Irish drivers were still too high.

“The compliance culture is not what we would like and it is not shifting very significantly,” he said.

The senior-ranking garda also confirmed a Traffic Corps Unit has been established at Burnfoot Garda Station in Co Donegal since yesterday.

The unit, which will operate on a three-month pilot basis, will concentrate its activities on the Inishowen peninsula which has recorded a high level of road deaths among young people in the past 18 months.

Mr Rock also said the decision to outsource safety cameras, once implemented, would increase the number of speed checks at accident locations.

The committee’s chairman, John Ellis (FF), expressed concern that the outsourcing of speed cameras could become “an industry”.

Fine Gael Transport spokesperson Olivia Mitchell said the location of the cameras should be a decision for gardaí. “The locations must be dictated by road safety and not revenue,” she warned.