The PSNI and Gardai joined forces at the Derry-Donegal border at Bridgend for an operation tackling speed.
The co-ordinated day-of-action targeting speed offences was the first of its kind between both police services and was aimed at reducing the number of people being killed on roads in Ireland.
The co-ordinated day-of-action targeting speed offences was the first of its kind between both police services and was aimed at reducing the number of people being killed on roads in Ireland.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [Sounds of traffic]
00:24 Okay, so this is the first time that there has been a cross-border element on focusing on speeding.
00:28 Can you tell me the purpose of this today?
00:31 Yeah, the purpose of this joint operation with our colleagues in the PSNI is to keep people safe on the roads.
00:35 Unfortunately, both in the Garda area of operation and the PSNI area of operation,
00:40 a large number of people have been fatally injured and died on the roads, and we're trying to prevent that.
00:47 By concentrating on what I would term the lifesaver offences,
00:51 being drunk driving, drink driving, speeding and not wearing a seatbelt,
00:55 we're trying to educate the public that needs to do this to keep themselves safe on the roads.
01:00 That's why we're working together today.
01:02 You mentioned there that there are a number of life's advantages.
01:05 You're focusing on speeding, but there are also other elements as well, as you said, the not wearing seatbelts.
01:09 Now it's about to come up to Christmas, the darker nights,
01:12 would you ask people to think more when they get onto the car?
01:16 Absolutely. Lots of things are going to play at this time of year.
01:20 The road conditions. We frost this morning earlier, for example.
01:23 You've got leaves on the road, the dark nights.
01:25 All these things are factors.
01:27 Speed limits, for example.
01:28 Sometimes the speed limit is fit for a purpose based on normal driving conditions.
01:33 Other times it's not. It's not a target to be achieved.
01:36 You're only supposed to drive in accordance with the conditions that are prevalent at the time.
01:40 And that's what we're trying to ask people to do.
01:42 I suppose to keep it simple, what I say to people is,
01:45 no matter how good a driver we think we are, we're not.
01:48 And the other thing I would say is, we're only as good as the other driver we meet.
01:52 We have that in mind.
01:53 If you're driving conservantly and safely, leave extra time to get to where we need to go.
01:58 I think, hopefully, we'll have no more deaths before Christmas.
02:01 [ambient traffic noise]