418 arrested for drink driving over bank holiday

SOME 418 motorists were arrested for drink driving over the bank holiday weekend, gardaí revealed last night.

The figure represents an increase on the number arrested during the last holiday weekend in August, when 232 drivers were nabbed in a similar garda crackdown.

After five people were killed and 137 injured during last year’s October bank holiday, gardaí drew up a well publicised and hard-hitting road safety enforcement operation.

Breathalysing checkpoints were set up by every garda division over the three days to midnight last night.

Almost 90 motorists were arrested for suspected drink driving in Cork, Kerry and Limerick alone, over the weekend — as motorists continued to ignore garda warnings.

Eighty-seven people had been arrested for drink driving in the region by lunchtime yesterday.

Fifty-three of those arrests were made in Cork city and county alone — up 70% on last year’s figure.

A number of so-called boy-racers who attended the Fastnet Rally in West Cork, were also arrested for dangerous driving.

National garda statistics showed that there had been 263 suspected drink driving incidents reported by Sunday lunchtime — with 100 of those arrests made between midnight on Saturday and lunchtime on Sunday.

Between Sunday lunch- time and yesterday afternoon a further 155 arrests were made.

A number of those arrested have been charged and are due before the courts in the coming days.

Random breath testing contributed to a high volume of the drink driving arrests in the southern region, regional traffic inspector Billy Duane said.

Several arrests were also made at early morning checkpoints, he said.

Insp Duane said the rise in arrests was due to a high visibility garda campaign and increased enforcement.

He warned motorists that increased enforcement will continue over the coming weeks, in the run-up to the Christmas drink driving crack-down.

“We are now in a high visibility enforcement mode,” he said. “Extra resources have been made available in recent weeks to mount high visibility check-points during day- light hours to reduce the incidents of careless and dangerous driving.”