The quality of roads in Donegal has no great impact on road carnage, according to Superintendent Vincent O'Brien.
His comments came at this week's public meeting of the Joint Policing Committee where he defended the County Council's decision to increase the speed limit on the R238 from Muff to Redcastle, a decision which has been met with much contention from road safety groups within the County.
"The standard of roads throughout the county has increased greatly and the roads and cars are much better than they used to be. Unfortunately, the driving still hasn't improved and increased education is still one of our main priorities."
Commenting specifically on the R238 road the Superintendent said: "I am aware that the decision was made to increase the speed to 100kph, but that particular stretch of road has undergone a lot of reconstruction and is practically a National Primary Route."
The Superintendent's comments came after the Chairperson of Donegal road-safety group A-Ceart, Mary Clinton expressed her sentiments that she was "appalled" that the speed limit had been raised on this road.
The Superintendent explained: "Gardai meet regularly with Donegal County Council, the NRA and County Councillors to discuss road accidents locations and analyse them on a monthly basis."
"When accidents reach a certain level on a particular road then we will designate them as collision-prone and for the period of one month we will target the with increased enforcement, engineering, education and encouragement. This is what we refer to as the 'Four Es'."
"With DCC we assess the engineering needed to improve the road and through the schools we look at education and young male drivers in particular. With regard to encouragement, not every roadside stop at a garda checkpoint results in a fine or a summons. At the end of the day we try and encourage people to be better drivers."
Chairman of the Joint Policing Committee, Letterkenny Town Councillor Damien Blake highlighted what he called the "Superman Complex" which exists among many young drivers in Donegal.
"There are a lot of drivers, young men in particular, who feel 'it won't be me, it ill be the next person', but as we have tragically seen, this is not the case. It does not take much to get a driver to slow down and it has been shown that the driver is the most solvable factor in combating road fatalities."
He added also: "It stands to all of us to stand up and say no. If you know someone who is a fast or reckless driver then it is not hard to refuse to get into a car with them."
Within the next year Superintendent O'Brien also hopes to have an enhanced Traffic Corps based in Letterkenny. He explained: "The Commissioner has pledged an extra 1500 garda to traffic units throughout the country and I am expecting a percentage of those to come to the Donegal division."
