3,000 Galway drivers caught speeding so far this year

More than 3,000 speeding fines were issued to motorists in the Galway Garda Division, which includes the city and county, in the first eight months of this year.

Garda Chief Superintendent, Tom Curley, made the disclosure as he confirmed he was appointing an inspector to deal specifically with traffic offences in the city and county.

Inspector Conor Madden will be based in Ballinasloe, and his appointment reflects Chief Supt Curley’s wish to tackle traffic offences, including speeding and drunk driving.

He said there were 3,025 speeding tickets issued in the first eight months of the year.

More than two thirds of them (2,197) were issued by Gardaí who had intercepted motorists and pulled them over.

The remainder were detected by GoSafe vans that have speed cameras attached. He said there was an issue with the GoSafe vans this year but he expected that the number detected by them would increase in the coming year.

Meanwhile, he said there were 1,848 detections of people driving while handing a mobile phone, and a further 696 people were detected not wearing seat belts.

Chief Supt Curley said the problem of drink driving remains ever-present. He said on average there are 30 arrests for drink drinking across Galway roads every month.

Specifically, in relation to the city, there were some 105 drink driving arrests in the first eight months of this year, three fewer than the same period the previous year.

There were 659 MAT (Mandatory Alcohol Test) checkpoints held on city roads during that period, and some 3,660 breath tests were performed.

In response to queries from Galway City Councillor Declan McDonnell (Ind), Chief Supt Curley said the number of city MAT checkpoints was down compared with last year. There were some 100 fewer MATs in the city in the first eight months of the year, compared with last year.

It was then he revealed an inspector based in Ballinasloe would focus on traffic.