The worst speeding incident recorded during yesterday’s national ‘Slow Down Day’ was in Donegal, reinforcing the county’s atrocious driving reputation.
The campaign was held over a 24-hour period between 7am yesterday to 7am this morning, Saturday. In total, An Garda Síochána and GoSafe checked 150,605 vehicles and detected 994 vehicles travelling in excess of the applicable speed limit.
The worst incidence of speeding was in Porthall, Lifford, where a vehicle was clocked doing 122km/h in a 50km/h zone. That’s almost two-and-a-half times the legal, safe speed limit.
Donegal has had some other ‘notable’ inclusions among the detections yesterday.
Earlier, a driver was caught at 118km/h in a 100km/h zone at Listillion, Letterkenny, while another was nabbed traveling at a speed of 90km/h in a 60km/h zone in a residential area at Mullandrait, Stranorlar.
The aim of National Slow Down Day is to remind drivers of the dangers of speeding, to increase compliance with speed limits and act as a deterrent to driving at excessive or inappropriate speed.
Speaking following the awareness campaign Chief Superintendent Ray McMahon Roads Policing Bureau said: “It is concerning that, despite advanced warning and our widely circulated appeals to slow down, that a significant number of motorists still failed to drive safely within the applicable speed limit. In the course of today’s campaign we detected a number of vehicles which were being driven at well in excess of the speed limit”.