Safety on our roads is among the top two policing priorities of the leader of the Galway Garda Division.

Chief Superintendent Gerard Roche reiterated that road safety and drugs were his two main priorities.

He told the latest County Galway Joint Policing Committee meeting that Gardaí would continue to focus on the lifesaver offences of mobile phone use while driving, seat belt use, speeding and driving under the influence of intoxicants.

Olivia Maher, local Garda crime analyst, said in the year to date there had been six fatal traffic collisions on County Galway roads that claimed the lives of seven people. For comparison, there was one fatal collision in the first seven months of 2022.

There were 18 traffic collisions involving serious injury up to the end of August, compared with 21 in that period last year. This did not include city fatalities and serious injury collisions.

Chief Supt Roche said Gardaí investigated and treated serious injury collisions as if they were fatal because the consequences are so severe for those involved who had to go through extensive rehab.

In response to Cllr Shelley Herterich Quinn (FF), he confirmed that Gardaí have reactivated meetings with engineers in County Hall and met with them after fatal or serious collisions to assess whether improvements to road infrastructure could prevent future collisions.

In most recent cases, he said they were unfortunate accidents rather than road design faults.

Ms Maher said there were 1,501 Mandatory Intoxicant Testing Checkpoints set-up in the county up in the first seven months of 2023, up 28% on the same period last year.

Some 171 intoxicated drivers were detected, which was on a par with last year (167) but the instances of drug driving had almost trebled. There were at least 39 instances of drug driving compared with 15 in the first seven months of 2022.

Chief Supt Roche said it was easier to test for drugs, and Gardaí were catching people who had cocaine and cannabis in their system days after they had used it.

Ms Maher said there were 513 detections of mobile phone use while driving in the first 35 weeks of 2023. This was an increase of 83%.

Seat belt offences were down 11% to 108 in the year-to-date, and speeding offences detected were down by 17% to 3,771 incidents in the first seven months of 2023.

That was almost 800 fewer speeding offences detected compared with the same period last year.

Ms Maher said the Slow Down Day that operated this week was used by Gardaí for awareness and to re-educate drivers about the dangers of speeding.

It came in the wake of several tragic collisions nationally where there were multiple fatalities.

The campaign was to “highlight the need to slow down”, she said.

Cllr Liam Carroll (FG) said as the evenings get darker, pedestrians and cyclists on rural roads should be reminded to wear high-visibility clothing so that they are seen by motorists.

Cllr Carroll also highlighted the issue of e-scooters and people using them on footpaths, and along the Coast Road from Oranmore into the city. He said they had now become a problem and were travelling at speeds of 30km/ph.

Cathaoirleach of the County Galway Joint Policing Committee Cllr Jim Cuddy (Ind) said he was sitting in traffic in Woodquay on Wednesday last with cars backed up in both directions and a person on a skateboard whizzed past down the middle of the two rows of cars and went straight through traffic lights.