As part of Operation Artery, and the ongoing enforcement of road traffic legislation, Gardaí from Dublin Metropolitan Region (DMR) Traffic Division, along with Divisional Traffic units around the city are carrying out checkpoints today, Thursday 30th January, and Friday 31st January, to ensure legislation governing the use of mobile phone is being followed.
The purpose of the operation is to not only enforce existing legislation, but to also ensure that all road users are protected, and to assist in the continuing efforts to reduce fatal and serious road traffic collisions.
Assistant Commissioner John Twomey, Garda National Traffic Bureau commented:
"From the perspective of An Garda Síochána, the two central pillars that assist in our campaign to drive down road traffic collisions and fatal injuries are enforcement and education. It is through checkpoints such as these that we can carry out both functions simultaneously.
It is vital that all road users are aware of their surroundings, and have optimum reaction times – using a mobile phone while driving is a barrier to both of these. Every road user must be responsible for their behaviour on the road, and mobile phone usage is a serious barrier to safe driving.”
Checkpoints on the 30th January resulted in the issue of in excess of 100 fixed penalty notices.
A further update on checkpoint figures will be released tomorrow afternoon, Friday 31st January.
Photographs are being tweeted from @gardatraffic, and are also available on request from the Garda Press Office – pressoffice@garda.ie.
