Kilkenny gardaí make strong plea to local drivers as Christmas approaches
Kilkenny gardaí are asking the public to be safe on the roads this festive season
Last December, 14 people lost their lives on Irish roads and 124 were seriously injured.
Posting to social media, a spokesperson said: "To die on our roads is never heroic but it is always tragic."
"Over the past number of years many lives have been tragically lost on our roads. Drink driving, Drug driving and indeed Distracted driving has taken too many bur excessive speed remains a killer," the spokesperson said.
"Unfortunately our 16-25 year olds, males especially, are disproportionately represented in statistics and perhaps we need to ask questions of ourselves.
"As a society we support those suffering devastation of loss well, but we don't always learn from tragedy," they continued.
"When it comes to fatal collisions involving excessive speed, we'll say the road was poor, the weather was atrocious instead of He/she was reckless to the prevailing conditions and that, number one is why there is an empty space at a table.
"We also at times celebrate the actions as somehow heroic as if the speed that lead to the tragedy had a noble purpose. To die on our roads is never heroic but it is always tragic," the spokesperson claimed.
"You might be the person who can influence someone close to you that lives shattered may never be rebuilt, lives lost never be replaced, spaces made never filled.
"Please, please slow down," the post concluded.