Vol. 575 No. 1
34 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Transport his views on the operation to date of the penalty points system; the number of drivers who have received penalty points to date; if there have been disqualifications to date based on the number of points received; the timetable for the extension of the system to other road offences; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27847/03]
Penalty points are being applied to the driving licence records of those convicted of speeding, seat belt wearing and insurance offences, and to those who pay a fixed charge to the Garda – in the case of speeding and seat belt wearing offences – in order to prevent the instigation of court proceedings. Preliminary indications from An Garda Síochána in respect of the operation of the system to date show that, with no reduction in enforcement efforts, there has been a significant drop in the number of detections for speeding offences.
It is now just over one year since penalty points for speeding were first introduced. At the end of October 2003, over 66,700 drivers had received penalty points for speeding offences since the introduction of the system in October 2002. The number of road deaths during the first year of the operation of the penalty points system was 333 compared to 409 for the corresponding 12-month period in the previous year. This represents the saving of 76 lives – nearly 19% – since the introduction of the system. At the end of October no driver had accumulated the 12 point threshold which leads to automatic disqualification.
The full application of the penalty points system will be achieved when the relevant IT systems being developed by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Garda are completed.
Question No. 35 answered with Question No. 23.
