Every police officer to crack down on bad driving

Drivers that break the laws of the road will face prosecution rather than cautions, police warned today.

Chief Inspector Phil Lewis said that every police officer across the island had been tasked to crack down on bad driving.

And his warning was echoed this afternoon by David Minors, the Road Safety Officer, who said: "We must act, and we must act now".

The road safety initiative, which is part of the Selective Transport Enforcement Programme (STEP) comes after five road fatalities have been recorded in the first two months of 2013.

Inspector Lewis, head of the Roads Policing Unit, said that police would be targeting impaired driving, speeding, driving without due care and attention, using cell phones while driving, disobeying road signs and improper use of crash helmets.

He added: "We have noticed an increase in bad driving behaviours over the last year.

"Our efforts will be geared towards this poor driving and we will work in partnership with the Road Safety Council and TCD.

"The main objective is to make the roads safer.

"In the coming months it will not just be officers from my unit but from across the entire police force that will take part in this programme.

"We will be targeting offences and there will be no cautions."

Inspector Lewis's comments came after police released a series of photographs over the weekend showing islanders breaking road safety rules.

He confirmed that nobody had been prosecuted as a direct result of the pictures, as they were more of an 'education tool'.

He told a press conference this afternoon that he had been amazed by some of the negative comments posted on news sites questioning why police were taking pictures of illegal drivers when there were murderers to catch.

Inspector Lewis added: "This was an individual's initiative – one of our officers took the pictures while he was off duty – and he then brought the pictures to our attention.

"The officer had become so frustrated with the amount of people breaking the road laws that he provided these pictures and we have tried to use them as an educational tool."