'Crazy speed': Driver caught travelling at 177km/h during National Slow Down Day

Gardai have expressed concern over the number of motorists who were caught speeding during a 24-hour clampdown which concluded at 7am this Tuesday.

There was an increased garda presence on roads across the country for National Slow Down Day while additional GoSafe vans were also deployed.

The final number of detections has not yet been confirmed but Superintendent Liam Geraghty of the Garda Press Office says it will be more than 600 - double the average number of detections for 'normal' days.

"It is a high figure particularly on a day which we advertise in advance and tell everybody that we will be out doing high visibility speed enforcement and we are still catching in excess of what we would catch on an average day," he told Newstalk Breakfast.

A number of detections from over the 24 hours have been highlighted by gardai including one vehicle which was caught travelling at 177km/h on the M6 motorway in County Westmeath.

"At a speed of 177 kilometres-per-hour - that's somebody making a conscious decision to break the speed limit who doesn't really care for anybody else on the road - that's a crazy speed. Even just to have a puncture at that speed, the consequences are tragic," said Supt Geraghty. 

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While there were a number of incidents of drivers travelling at high speed during National Slow Down Day, he added that gardai are more concerned about the number of speeding detections on local and regional roads where a 50km/h limit applies.

"We regularly have people 25 and 30 kilometres-per-hour in excess of the speed limit in a 50km zone when we know those are the zones where there are far more vulnerable road users - pedestrians, pedal cyclists and scooter users - and somebody struck by a vehicle travelling at 60 km/h has a nine-in-ten chance of being killed," he stated.