When will we get a mobile phone emergency alert system in Ireland?

R

Robovac rider

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This like lots of other things has been promised for a long time but has not been set up.

Reports in today's newspapers imply that the Gardai were fully aware that there was an extremely dangerous emergency situation on the M9 for a considerable time period before the shocking crash took place.

If the long promised mobile phone warning system was in place this crash could possbly have been avoided.

A simple emergency message to all mobiles in the danger area could have alerted the victims to leave the motorway section or to immediately pull over and stop in the hard shoulder.
 
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Robovac rider said:
If the long promised mobile phone warning system was in place this crash could possbly have been avoided.
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Seriously? After the mess that happened last weekend in the UK when they sent out an alert to everybody not to have a BBQ because fire is dangerous. Which has resulted in derision. And people in their droves turning off mobile alerts.

BTW it seems to me, something I was unaware of, driving around the wee hours to Dublin of a Saturday night is an ongoing complete teenage carnage every single weekend.

Robovac rider said:
A simple emergency message to all mobiles in the danger area could have alerted the victims to leave the motorway section or to immediately pull over and stop in the hard shoulder.
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Better not to drive at all. Ever. Or maybe, just maybe, someone should deal with delinquents given a free hand to do whatever they hell they feel like on public motorways whenever it takes their fancy playing life or death with their lives and everyone else's lives.
 
I was in the UK last week and got the BBQ fire alerts.

Both our phones sounded an alarm very loudly even though they were in silent mode. It was highly effective at getting our attention even while driving and to be honest I think the situation on the M9 could be a good usecase for them. Telling people not to have fires with such a serious sounding alarm felt quite ridiculous, particularly because we each got it 4-5 times over about an hour.
 
JoeRoberts said:
You need less distractions while driving, not more.
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In order to reduce the number of "distractions" while driving, should manufacturers remove speedos, fuel gauges, stereos, and warning lights and boings from cars? Should councils remove directional sign-posts, speed limit signs, stop signs, traffic and pedestrian lights, and ban road works signs? Those measures would certainly guarantee that motorists had fewer distractions while getting on with driving.
 
JoeRoberts said:
You need less distractions while driving, not more.
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A warning is not a distraction.

A warning can save lives and injuries on our roads.

A headlight flash can alert an unsuspecting driver to a danger ahead. For example animals, pedestrians, cyclists, a crash or any obstacle ahead. Escepially useful if there is a blind bend.

This type of warning, or distraction in your opinion, is now commonly used while driving through the Scalp when the mountain goats are grazing along this winding road.

It seems to work successfully. I have not heard of any goats being hit by the distracted drivers.
 
As I understand it, you're fine if the message is automatically read out to you.

If you read it on the phone, it's an offence. Would it be possible to distinguish an emergency alert SMS from a message from the wife to pick up bread on the way home?

bpdrivingschool.com

Using a Mobile Phone While Driving — The Law in Ireland (2026) | BP Driving School

The complete guide to mobile-phone law while driving in Ireland — handheld use, texting, hands-free, penalty points, learner and novice driver rules, fixed charges and what the RSA says about distraction.
bpdrivingschool.com bpdrivingschool.com



Texting and Reading Messages​

The law goes further than calls. S.I. No. 178 of 2014 extended the offence to cover sending or reading a text message while driving. The wording specifically covers both sending and receiving — so from a legal perspective there is no distinction between typing a message and glancing at one that arrived.

This matters because many people mentally separate "I was only reading a text — I didn't reply" as a different category of behaviour. It is not. Both fall within the same prohibited category under Irish law.
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1787245354831.webp
 
mathepac said:
In order to reduce the number of "distractions" while driving, should manufacturers remove speedos, fuel gauges, stereos, and warning lights and boings from cars? Should councils remove directional sign-posts, speed limit signs, stop signs, traffic and pedestrian lights, and ban road works signs? Those measures would certainly guarantee that motorists had fewer distractions while getting on with driving.
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My car tells me police are up ahead and ask me to confirm if they are still there. Same for roadworks.

It’s a known fact that there are too many physical signs. Urban clutter I think it’s called.
 
mathepac said:
order to reduce the number of "distractions" while driving, should manufacturers remove speedos, fuel gauges, stereos, and warning lights and boings from cars? Should councils remove directional sign-posts, speed limit signs, stop signs, traffic and pedestrian lights, and ban road works signs? Those measures would certainly guarantee that motorists had fewer distractions while getting on with driving.
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We are talking about a phone reading out every text message that you receive
 
JoeRoberts said:
We are talking about a phone reading out every text message that you receive
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No, only you are. Speech to text can be enabled or disabled or volume adjusted on an app by app basis, check your phone's settings or preferences, but emergency broadcasts are different, as above, and, because they're general emergencies for the public at large, they override user settings.
 
As I understand it, the emergency alert messages that you get in the UK and AUS systems (which I assume is also the system we will adopt) are not text messages. Thus it's not a question of them overriding your setting for text messages; they're not affected by those settings in the first place. They are affected by your general settings (e.g. if your phone is on silent) and they will override those.

If you receive one of these messages your phone doesn't read it out aloud - at least, not by default. There's an audible signal to alert you, but you have to read the message on the screen.

If you have your phone, or your car entertainment system linked to your phone, configured to read out text messages by default, I don't know whether this configuration will also apply to these alerts. This may vary from system to system. I also don't know if you can separately configure to have emergency alerts read out loud, even if texts are not.

The bottom line is that they are intrusive — that's a feature, not a bug — and they do risk posing a distraction to drivers. Nevertheless, if there's an imminent danger that requires people to take prompt action, I think the distraction is justified. We don''t ban car systems that do, in fact, read out all your text messages, or offer audibly to do so, or that allow you to make and receive hands-free calls, and these are also distracting, and don't serve the same safety goals.

The point is that these urgent alert systems should only be used to convey messages that do require immediate action to avert or avoid a danger. "Don't light barbecues today" is not such a message, but "there's a car, quite close to you, that is driving at speed the wrong way down the motorway that you may currently be on" certainly is.

Whether you get the message or not depends on what mobile phone tower your phone is connecting to, so messages can be delivered in a highly localised way. The system is not precise enough to deliver the message only to people who are in the affected carriageway, but it certainly precise enough only to deliver the message to people who are within a kilometre or so of the location of the offending vehicle, or of its apparent course. But all phones in the selected area will get the message, including the phones of people who are not driving on the motorway, or who are not driving at all.
 
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