Lockdown tipplers behind increase in drink driving cases
People drinking alcohol at home during lockdown – and then getting into their cars and driving – has contributed to an increase in drink driving arrests this year.
Chief Superintendent Tom Curley, in his latest Galway Garda crime statistics report, noted there has been a 5% rise in drink driving arrests this year.
Between January and the end of October of this year, there were 210 people caught in County Galway for driving while intoxicated. That was 10 more compared with the same 10-months period last year.
County Councillor Daithí Ó Cualáin (FF) said the year-on-year increase was worrying because in 2020, Galway was in lockdown twice and traffic on the roads had been greatly reduced, particularly during the first lockdown in spring.
“Where is the drink driving coming from? Is it house parties?” Cllr Ó Cualáin asked.
Chief Supt Curley said it was not necessarily house parties, but “people drinking wine and spirits at home”.
Gardaí were stopping drunk drivers at scheduled MIT checkpoints (Mandatory Intoxicant Testing), and at regular and Covid-19 checkpoints.
It was also detected “at the scene of accidents or if the public ring in and report someone driving erratically”, he said.
“These are not hard luck stories; these are (people driving) three, four or five times over the limit
Cllr Ó Cualáin said it was also worrying that speeding offences in County Galway had increased during the past ten months, compared with the same period in 2019.
“Traffic on our roads has been reduced, and yet speeding offences are up,” said Cllr Ó Cualáin.
Elsewhere in the crime report, in relation to traffic policing, Chief Supt Curley said there were 274 detections of driving without insurance in County Galway in the first 10 months of 2020. That was down by 26 cases or 9% compared with the same months in 2019.
There were 61% fewer accidents causing serious injury, down by 19 to 12 incidents on Galway roads in the first ten months of this year.