More than 300 drivers were caught speeding on Monday despite the initiative being widely publicised in an effort to get motorists to reduce speed.

The temptation is to seize upon individual cases which arose on Monday, such as the driver caught travelling at 161km/h along a 100km/h stretch of the N53 near Dundalk. 

By doing so, however, do we miss the more relevant point — rather than the occasional driver travelling at extreme speed catching our eye as a headline, is the number of motorists breaking speed limits indicative of a wider problem?

It is truly depressing to realise that, despite the heartbreaking losses in Tipperary, drivers are not slowing down; the culture of speeding appears to be so deeply ingrained here that nothing will shock people into reducing their speed.

Road safety may be first and foremost a matter of individual responsibility, but outside factors must also be acknowledged. 

As revealed in the Irish Examiner yesterday, the numbers of gardaí policing our roads has fallen significantly in recent years — a total of 804 gardaí worked in the roads policing unit, then known as the traffic corps, in 2013. 

But, as of July this year, 664 officers were working in the unit, a fall of 17%.

A reduction of this size — almost one in five dedicated traffic officers gone — is certainly noticeable to regular road users. 

It surely contributes to the sense among some drivers that speeding may not be punished and is therefore a chance worth taking.

As often happens, recent calls for new speeding legislation might be better repurposed as calls for the enforcement of legislation which already exists.

Cyber security for children

The decision taken recently to ban smartphones in primary schools in Waterford and elsewhere met with general approval, and little wonder.

It is difficult to make any argument in favour of children as young as seven or eight accessing smartphones while in school, particularly in light of information released recently by Irish charity CyberSafeKids.

That organisation has shown the extent to which children are suffering from cyberbullying, some as young as eight — 25% of primary school pupils experienced cyberbullying during the last school year alone, and that figure rose to 40% for secondary school students. 

Worse again, many of those children do not share their plight with parents or teachers.

This is not even to dwell on a range of other problems, ranging from children being upset or frightened by something encountered online to the prospect of grooming or sexual exploitation — more than 60% of children surveyed said they had been contacted by a stranger in an online game.

An interesting point in this regard was raised by CyberSafeKids chief executive Alex Cooney, who stated that the organisation and others like it struggle to survive, but the social media companies which provide the platforms used by children make billions in profit.

Politicians calling for safeguards in this area might be better advised to look at placing a levy on those social media companies to fund online child safety measures.

It would be a better day’s work than hand-wringing about regulation — some of those companies have been found guilty in the past of “scraping” children’s data without permission, behaviour which doesn’t suggest organisations likely to be moved by appeals to decency.

Given the profits such companies make, their brazen exploitation of personal data, and the absolute cynicism of their manipulation of small children, the least they could do is repair some of the damage they have done.

Public representatives should legislate accordingly.

Travel time

Traffic congestion is a problem everywhere, it seems, with every local authority on the planet stymied by the challenge.

Avoiding roadworks or construction projects in an effort to save travel time is a daily problem for millions of commuters, even with the growth in the numbers working from home.

However, even allowing for the frustrations and difficulties posed by traffic jams and delays, the action taken near the Great Wall of China recently seems a little hasty.

As reported this week, a 38-year-old man and 55-year-old woman in Shanxi province, northern China, have been accused of digging through the Great Wall to create a shortcut for their construction work. 

Local police stated that an existing gap in the ancient structure — parts of which date back over 2,000 years — was widened by the pair, who were trying to create a gap large enough for their excavator. 

The reasons for doing so?

To “save the distance of travel”, according to the police statement. 

The Chinese authorities do not treat vandalism of the Great Wall lightly and, if convicted, the two workers face stiff punishment, particularly if the damage is irreversible, as reported by some outlets.

It may also create a dangerous precedent for other jurisdictions. 

If the Great Wall is fair game for traffic management measures, is anything sacred?

Will we see precious monuments such as the GPO in Dublin or the Fr Mathew Statue in Cork removed or damaged by those seeking to cut their travel time? 

Our authorities have been warned.