stealing cars and posting footage of their encounters with garda\u00ed on TikTok.<\/a><\/p>\nIn one such video, taken in the north of Dublin late last week, a passenger can be heard screaming encouragement as the young driver, wearing a balaclava, speeds the wrong way down roadways before driving against oncoming traffic on a slip road onto a motorway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The video continues with the passenger screaming that the pursuing garda\u00ed are \u201cblown\u201d as the driver pilots the car through oncoming traffic, flashing his lights at an oncoming truck as he speeds onto the motorway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the phenomenon on the rise, and as coverage of the M9 crash in particular continues to dominate the headlines, what is the official advice for Irish road users who are met with the terrifying scenario of meeting a speeding car heading towards them on the motorway?\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Seeking advice\u00a0<\/p>\n
We contacted both the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and\u00a0An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na to ask for any advice for motorists who may be confronted with a driver speeding the wrong way at them on the motorway network.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson said this morning the RSA was \u201cnot in a position\u201d to offer advice in this area that it would be \u201cvery difficult\u201d for the RSA to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis kind of crazed criminal behaviour that we saw at the weekend, what advice can you give? What can you say?\u2026 It\u2019s an impossible situation,\u201d the organisation\u2019s head of communications, David Martin, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said in a follow-up email that the RSA had \u201cnever developed any guidance for drivers who may encounter vehicles driving towards them on the wrong side of the road\u201d.<\/p>\n
The RSA issued a statement in the aftermath of the M9 crash offering its sympathies to those affected and saying the agency would not be commenting further as the collision was now under investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked for any official advice for motorists on what they should do if they encounter a driver approaching head-on, a spokesperson for\u00a0An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na said on Monday: \u201cAll drivers are aware that it is an offence to drive the wrong way on the motorway and know not to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na has been asked for a more detailed statement but none had been sent at the time of publication of this article.<\/p>\n
One organisation that did readily offer advice for motorists was the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA), whose members frequently travel on motorways early in the morning and late at night.<\/p>\n
The IRHA said it offers this advice to its members:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IRHA advises motorists that, if they are ever confronted by a vehicle travelling towards them in the wrong direction, they should try and remain calm, reduce their speed, and, where possible and safe to do so, move to the left and stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrivers should avoid taking evasive action that could put them or other road users at greater risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
IRHA president Ger Hyland said that if the situation occurs on a motorway or other high-speed road, motorists should prioritise getting out of the vehicle\u2019s path and, once safe, contact the emergency services and report the incident.<\/p>\n
Garda sources we spoke to for this article added that if scenarios like this happen at night, there is often even less time for the motorist to react, as the car travelling the wrong direction will look like other cars travelling in the opposite direction on the motorway, and it won\u2019t be apparent that they are in the wrong carriageway.<\/p>\n
In response to the two recent incidents on Irish motorways, Justice Minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan said that garda\u00ed will be given vehicle pursuit training this year.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nIncludes reporting from Niall O\u2019Connor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SINCE JUST THE start of the month, there have been two serious crashes on the Irish motorway network…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,272527,5,11697,34438,7,8,272528],"class_list":["post-644035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-motorways","tag-news","tag-road-safety","tag-rsa","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-wrong-way-driving"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117117836586048866","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}