Chief Superintendent hits out at people highlighting checkpoint locations

Donegal’s top Garda says that people should be mindful of road safety when alerting other motorists to speed vans or checkpoints on the county’s roads.

Chief Superintendent Aidan Glacken was speaking at a meeting of the Donegal Joint Policing Committee (JPC) on Friday at the County House in Lifford.

Chief Superintendent Glacken said social media sites have been awash with pages set up with the purpose of alerting people to the presence of speed vans and checkpoints.

“In terms of the collective, if you go to social media forums and type in Garda checkpoints, you will see pages warning people of locations of garda checkpoints,” he said.

“I do a lot of driving and I’ve had motorists flashing their headlights at me to warn me of an upcoming garda checkpoint.

“There is a collective responsibility on the public in relation to warning motorists about drink driving and road safety awareness checkpoints.

“A car is a deadly weapon. Put that vehicle in the hands of someone who is impaired and it is twice as bad.

“What is the benefit of warning people about these checkpoints?”

The JPC meeting was informed that there were 1,049 proactive checkpoints in Donegal in the first 11 months of 2023 and a further 1,636 mandatory intoxicant testing (MIT) checkpoints.

Chief Superintendent Glacken said: “There has been a reduction in the numbers as we have taken a slightly different approach to locations and times.

“Our primary function is to keep people safe. It is not our desire to increase detections for the sake of increasing detections.”