"Road safety and driver training should be a core subject on the secondary school curriculum." That's according to former Garda John Wilson from Cavan.
Speaking on this morning's Joe Finnegan Show the former Garda believes safety training should be a "core subject" with the same points available for third level education as the likes of English, science and maths.
His comments follow figures released by Gardaí which state that a total of 127 people have been killed so far this year in road collisions. in relation to this figure, Mr Wilson said, "It's shocking to think that this is a small percentage of the near misses that also occurred so far this year. If they had of resulted in fatalities this figure would be much bigger and that's frightening."
Mr Wilson says introducing road safety and driver training to the school curriculum would need "large financial investment." Despite this, he believes the implementation of such a thing would quickly prove to be "cost effective" and result in the preservation of many human lives.
Meanwhile, 127 motorists have been found speeding so far as part of National Slow Down day. Running until 7 o'clock tomorrow morning, the garda operation aims to remind drivers of the dangers of speeding, increase compliance with limits, and act as a deterrent.
In its first five hours, a driver was caught doing 155 kilometres per hour on the M6 in Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath; while another motorist was detected driving at 121 kilometres per hour in an 80 kilometre zone on the N2 in Monaghan.
