Police in Northern Ireland have urged drivers to slow down, pay attention and stop taking risks, in response to an increase in the number of road deaths.
So far this year, 46 people have been killed on the country’s roads (as of 17 August), 18 more than the same period in 2022.
Chief inspector Graham Dodds, the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s head of road policing, says these figures show that “as a society we are still not taking road safety seriously enough”.
Mr Dodds adds that “removing excess speed from the road safety equation should be the easiest thing that every road user can do”.
He said: “Inattention and speed, or more accurately, excessive speed for the conditions and drink or drug driving, are consistently the principal causes of the most serious road traffic collisions in which people are killed or seriously injured on roads in Northern Ireland.
“Speeding is not just a low-level crime, it’s dangerous. It is a serious threat to other road users. Speeding causes crashes. In a crash the most vulnerable thing on the road is you.
“If we all stop speeding, more people live. If we all stop speeding, fewer people have to contend with life-changing injuries.”
Mr Dodds stressed that “reducing deaths and serious injury on our roads is a policing priority”.
He added: “We will continue to target the small minority of people who continue to disregard the laws, whether speeding, driving without due care and attention, not wearing seatbelts, driving after taking drink or drugs, or driving while using a mobile telephone.”
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