Gardaí belive accidents caused by youths texting while driving

GARDAÍ believe two recent fatal accidents in Co Cork were likely to have been caused by young drivers taking their eye off the road while texting.

Chief Superintendent Michael Finn said texting and driver fatigue were becoming more common causes of fatal accidents.

“Young people in particular are not inclined to talk on their phones. Rather they text, which is extremely dangerous as they are then looking down and not looking at the road in front of them,” the senior garda said.

Gardaí have become increasingly concerned about this practice.

“In general, people are becoming more compliant and are not using mobile phones to make calls when they’re driving. But there is still a lot of room for improvement,” the chief superintendent said.

People found using hand-held mobile phones face two penalty points on their licence and a fine.

The number of drink-driving cases detected is falling in Cork, Kerry, and Limerick, according to those involved in the regional traffic corps.

However, there has been a notable increase in the number of fatal and serious accidents caused by tiredness.

Gardaí suspect that, in some fatal accidents, people have been coming home after working long shifts and have fallen asleep behind the wheel.

They have anecdotal evidence that, as a result of the economic situation, some parents are having to double-job to make ends meet and this has resulted in an increase in the number of crashes caused directly by tiredness.

“It is a growing problem,” Chief Supt Finn said.

Meanwhile, he has reported a massive increase in the detection of speeding offences in his own Cork City Garda Division.

Last year, in the nine months to the end of September, there were 1,043 speeding offences detected by speed cameras in the city. However, there were 3,315 in the comparable period this year — a 218% increase.

The divisional garda chief said the increases were due to the gardaí bringing in Go-Safe detection vans to cover designated areas around the city that are deemed to be a problem.

He said drivers had no excuses as the location of Go-Safe vans were posted on the National Roads Authority (NRA) website.