This article is from page 5 of the 2006-01-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 5 JPG
DRIVERS in urban areas, over the age of 30, accounted for the majority of drink driving arrests in Clare during the Christmas road safety campaign, The Clare People learned.
So far during the campaign, which will conclude on Sunday, 31 people have been arrested for drink driving, 10 of which were during the past week.
While this figure is a reduction on the same five-week period last year, the overall figure for the year shows a 10 per cent increase in the number of people arrested for drink driving in the Clare garda division.
283 drivers were arrested for drink driving during the whole of last year, compared with 257 during 2004.
And while warnings on drink driving does appear to be hitting home in rural parts of the county, the same cannot be said in urban parts.
The head of the Clare garda division traffic bureau Inspector Kevin Moynihan said while the checkpoints were “evenly spread” throughout the division, the majority of the arrests during the Christmas campaign were in Ennis and Shannon.
“The arrests during the campaign so far have mainly been urban. “There have been very few arrests in rural areas. Possibly people are paying attention more in rural areas. has don’t seem to be listening,” he said. “There is more public transing more. Most people arrested were
“Younger people seem to be listenport in urban areas but people just over 30 and all will face court in the new year”.
Meanwhile the number of drivers issued with fixed charge notices for speeding decreased by 21 during the first four weeks of the six-week Christmas campaign, when compared with the corresponding period during 2004.
During the same period, 62 drivers were issued with notices for failing to wear seatbelts, a decrease of 15 on the same month in 2004.
However year-on-year, there was a significant increase in the number of drivers caught speeding or failing to wear their seatbelts.
There was extra enforcement during the year while an additional five personnel are expected to be appointed to the traffic corps in the division this year, as part of government plans to increase the national traffic corps from 563 to 805 nationally.
Inspector Moynihan said that overall, the road safety campaign over Christmas was a success. While there were a number of minor accidents, there were no major crashes.
“It certainly has been a success. Thankfully there were no fatalities and no serious injury accidents. There were a number of minor accidents and these were down to road conditions,” he said.
A total of 12 people were killed in road crashes in the Clare garda division during 2005, compared with 11 during 2004.