68 people have died on our roads so far this year, 13 more than at the same time in 2015.

The figures come as Gardaí announce that 355 new roads will be monitored by speed camera vans.

Gardaí say speed is the biggest factor in most crashes and there has been a marked reduction in the number of fatal collisions in areas with speed cameras.

The new areas will bring to over 1,000 the number of sites monitored by cameras.

Gardaí decided on the locations by looking at areas where the most high-speed collisions occurred.

They say that speed camera monitoring actually runs at a loss of millions of euro but Garda Superintendent Aidan Reid says that the most important thing is that it saves lives.

A full map of the new speed camera locations is available on the Garda website.

Sean Defoe reports: