Road safety campaigners demand end to Google Maps warnings for garda checkpoints

Road safety campaigners have urged Google to remove satnav alerts for random garda speed traps and checkpoints to ensure reckless drivers are detected and lives are saved.

Road safety campaigners have urged Google to remove satnav alerts for random garda speed traps and checkpoints to ensure reckless drivers are detected and lives are saved.

The Irish Road Victims’ Association (IRVA) and Parc have both backed Green Party Cork city councillor Oliver Moran's request to Google to remove the alert feature amid concerns that it could hamper garda road safety operations and wider policing activity.

IRVA founder and chairperson, Donna Price, whose 18-year-old son Darren was killed in a road crash in 2006, said reckless drivers should not be forewarned about speed traps or checkpoints.

“Anyone breaking the rules of the road should be apprehended,” Ms Price said.

"I don’t want someone who is driving dangerously to be forewarned about a speed trap or a checkpoint. 

"I want them apprehended. I want them taken off the road, to spare other families the devastation of such needless loss."

Parc’s Susan Gray said government should examine the alerts issue, describing them as “a backward step for road safety”.

“We would ask the incoming transport minister to examine this issue, to consider what can be done, and to see if the law needs to be strengthened,” she said.