Dramatic fall in number of breath tests despite a million more drivers on road
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/dramatic-fall-in-number-of-breath-tests-despite-a-million-more-drivers-on-road/a916193655.html
Posted by PoppedCork
Dramatic fall in number of breath tests despite a million more drivers on road
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/dramatic-fall-in-number-of-breath-tests-despite-a-million-more-drivers-on-road/a916193655.html
Posted by PoppedCork
27 Comments
Other EU countries are testing five, ten, times more than we are. If we’re serious about safety, we need real random testing, not the annual Christmas photo op.
10 years on a full license.
9 years driving as a big part of my job, doing 40 to 50k a year.
Ive never been breathalysed or even had a garda ask to see my licence.
I’ve been driving since 2011 and have never been breathalysed
Driving in Ireland for 13 years now.
Zero times stopped for anything. Once there was a drive-through disc check, they’ve made a little tent across the road, and I drove through it slowly, they just checked discs, and that’s it.
Before that I drove in Croatia for 15 years (before I moved to Ireland), and I got stopped at least twice a year for various checks. Breathalyser, or equipment check, etc.
Only the roads policing unit carry breathalyser. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it first.
Driving since 2017, I was breathalyzed once on some morning in 2018
Not surprising. Personally, I’ve not seen a checkpoint since COVID and I’m on the road doing lots of KMs for work across all types of roads. Haven’t even seen a customs checkpoint in a few years and I’d be regularly near ports and the airport in Cork.
Does ANYTHING work in this country apart from the passport office?!
Been driving for 8 years, breathalysed once on a bank holiday weekend. They’re as predictable as milks expiry date
In 25 years driving I’ve been breath tested twice and drug tested once. Last time was at a Covid checkpoint. I’ve not seen a checkpoint since then, even when coming home from Dublin late at night on the may bank holiday weekend when apparently they were out in force.
The car parks to the local pubs in the town are packed every weekend. One of them is within spitting distance of the station.
I’ve honestly not seen a checkpoint in years, haven’t been breathalysed in about ten. I travel for my job and I feel like the couple days I spend in other European cities I see more of their police in two days than I do in entire years in Ireland.
Not surprised by this at all.
In 20 odd years of driving I’ve been breathalised twice. One of those times leaving a festival where nearly everyone was checked. I cannot remember the last time I’ve even seen a checkpoint.
Lads idk where the rest of the comments live but there’s always checkpoints round where I am and I’m in the sticks
Driving for 20 years. I’ve never been breathalysed or asked to produce my licence. Granted I dont drink but still how would they know
About 90% of ireland’s problems come down to the Guards not being arsed enforcing the law: road safety, scrotes on scramblers, scrotes in general, the far right…
Driving here for 10 years now. Never tested or breathalyzed, even after a major accident which was pretty baffling to be honest.
Driving since 1999 & never been breathalysed
I live in rural Ireland and I’m a 5 minute walk from my local pub. It’s in the middle of nowhere from a policing perspective, there are 2 very large towns about 20 minutes in each direction, and 1 small town about a 5 minute drive away. The small town has a part time station and only from 9-7 or something like that a few days per week. Just stating this for context.
If you went to my local at 6pm on a Friday evening it’s packed out and there are people parked all down the road in front of it. Walk out the door at closing and there’s rarely a car left, pretty much everyone drinks and drives. Now some will only have 1 or 2, dropping in after work on the way home for dinner, but many will easily be sinking pints for the evening and drive home. 10 years living here and this goes on every single weekend, and I’ve never ever seen a Garda checkpoint here or even heard of anyone being caught.
Maybe also worth noting that I’ve never heard of anyone having an accident in that time either but that’s a different discussion!
22 years driving.
500+km drivin so far.
Breath tested twice. Last time was 7 years ago.
I was driven into head on by a dominos pizza delivery driver. He was driving (speeding)on completely wrong side of the road. My car wrote off. No breathalyser, it was broken, and no drug test. ” its just an insurance issue ”
Often find the frequency with which you get breathalysed is based on Garda’s personal profiling of people.
A young lad driving a somewhat powerful or slightly modified car at night = instant breathalyser and drugs text
The same young lad driving in the morning time in a modest affordably priced car = possibly a disc check but more than likely waved through.
Gardai have an awful habit of profiling and its not talked about at all, especially given the people most likely to be drink driving are older people in the morning time, likely in a rural location after they went too hard te night before and think they’ve slept it off after 4 hours sleep.
I don’t think you can trust the Garda breathalyser figures from 2010. They were caught completely fabricating their KPIs a few years ago. There’s absolutely no reason to think they were accurate before that.
I’ve been driving since 2008 and never been tested.
I was breathalysed 3 times in 2 days. It was shortly after the controversy surrounding the unused breathalyser tests. It was hard not to laugh in the Gardas face during the third test.
“a substantial number of gardaí assigned to Roads Policing are not doing their jobs and have no interest in doing them.”
That’s from the Policing and Community Safety Authority last year. So it’s a well known issue, but clearly nothing has been done about it.
Source: https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0731/1526401-garda-crowe-report/
Driving 37 years. Never breathalyzed.
Driving since 1988 and being bagged once.
I think it must depend on the amount of car crashes or fatalities in your area. My county has very little. Then again, I don’t be driving around at night or weekends, so not likely to come up against them.