National Slow Down Day: Galway driver among the fastest

By Steven Fox

A Galway driver was stopped by Gardaí after being clocked doing 117km per hour in a 50km zone yesterday, during National Slow Down Day.

The driver was travelling along the N6 at Baile an Phoill while Gardaí were out in force monitoring speeds for 24 hours between 28 February and 1 March.

Gardaí checked the speed of 173,811 vehicles and stopped 628 for breaking limits.

Elsewhere, in Dublin, a driver was stopped while doing 122km per hour in an 80km per hour zone, while another was stopped while going at 159km per hour in a 100km zone in Cork.

20 people were killed in traffic collisions in January of 2023, the most killed in that month in the last ten years.

National Slow Down Day takes place from 7am Tuesday 28 February to 7am Wednesday 1 March. @GardaTraffic will be conducting speed checks around the country.

Please reduce speed this National Slow Down Day #VisionZero pic.twitter.com/oNnTgxFqJb

— RSA Ireland (@RSAIreland) February 27, 2023

Last year, over 600 drivers were stopped while speeding on Irish roads. 156 people were killed in collisions, the highest since 2016.

Speeding offences account for over 70 per cent of penalty point offences annually.

Gardaí say that a third of crashes in Ireland are caused by speeding.

National Slow Down Day is run by an Garda Síochána in cooperation with the Road Safety Authority.

“Excessive speed continues to be a leading contributory factor in fatal and serious injury collisions in Ireland. Slow down – drive at a speed that is appropriate to the conditions and your experience and remember a speed limit is not a target” says the RSA.