It is done in the Schedule. This amendment is merely to provide for endorsement of the licence. The position is that the Road Traffic Act, 1933, provided for two summary offences. One consisted of driving—
—without exercising reasonable consideration for persons, vehicles and other traffic.
The other involved driving—
—at a speed or in a manner which, having regard to all the circumstances of the case (including the nature, condition and use of the place and the amount of traffic which then actually is or might reasonably be expected then to be in the place) is dangerous to the public.
The really serious cases involving death were dealt with by a charge of manslaughter, but in fact it became virtually impossible to get a court to convict of manslaughter in a driving case. The Road Traffic Act, 1961, therefore provided for new offences. Under section 52 of the 1961 Act, it is an offence to drive a vehicle in a public place without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the place. Under section 53 of the 1961 Act, it is an offence to drive a vehicle in a public place at a speed or in a manner which, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, is dangerous to the public. Where death or serious bodily harm is caused to another person, a section 53 offence is an indictable one; in other cases, it is a summary offence. The indictable offence, which carries very heavy penalties, was designed for use in the type of case in which a manslaughter charge would have been brought prior to 1961, although a charge of manslaughter is still taken in a very few bad cases.
On the whole, the provisions of the 1961 Act have not produced good results. Judges have tended to apply to all dangerous driving cases the criteria already applied by them to manslaughter charges. Juries have tended to acquit in all but the really bad cases, despite the evidence. The result is that, while summary charges of dangerous driving are on the whole dealt with reasonably well by the District Courts, the more serious cases are not so dealt with in the Circuit Court. The position appears to be that —I am sure Deputy Fitzpatrick knows this—the more serious the charge, the better the chance the accused has of being acquitted. Sections 48 and 49 are designed to deal with this situation. It can be seen from the figures of cases taken to court that the position will be that the really bad type of case, the case in which juries have tended to convict, will continue to be dealt with under section 53 of the 1961 Act as dangerous driving, either on indictment or summarily. It will be a matter for the State to select which cases they propose to proceed with by a charge of dangerous driving, that is, under section 53.
Up to now cases involving death or serious bodily harm were practically all dealt with by a charge of dangerous driving which was tried by a judge and jury. The only alternative to that was to base the charge on section 52, driving without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration. But the penalty for a section 52 offence is only the general penalty, the maximum for the first offence being a fine of only £20. The result of this was that there was a considerable gap between the dangerous driving charge, for which the maximum penalty is penal servitude up to five years and a fine of up to £500 or both, and a careless driving charge in cases involving death or serious bodily harm. The result of this big gap was that very little use was made of section 52 in such cases. Practically all cases were dealt with by the dangerous driving charge and in a very large proportion of these cases, the charge was not successful.
What is being done is that a new offence is being inserted by the Bill in an attempt to close this gap between dangerous driving and the lesser offence. What is being done is that the existing offence under section 52 is being broken up into two separate offences—driving without reasonable consideration which is in section 48 and driving without due care and attention which is in section 49. The position would be that the first offence, that of driving without reasonable consideration, which is in section 48 will be the equivalent of the present charge and the offence of driving without due care and attention in section 49 will be the more serious of the two, and we are providing for a heavier penalty in that case, a penalty which will be in the gap between the two existing penalties. This means that cases which do not involve an element of recklessness will now not be brought before the courts as dangerous driving charges. These were the type of cases in which the courts tended not to convict because of the fact that apparently the penalties were considered to be too heavy.
There is an obvious need for an intermediate offence which is being provided here. The careless driving and the inconsiderate driving are two distinct offences and they can be clearly differentiated. Careless driving is aimed at the person who is careless but not necessarily driving without due consideration for others, while the latter, the inconsiderate driving charge, covers the driver who may be quite careful in so far as his own safety is concerned but disregards the comfort and convenience of others. A decision as to which type of offence any particular case comes under is a matter for determination by the court. The first amendment that has been made here concerns the new offence of careless diving. It will be a more serious one than the existing offence and the penalties applying to it are being increased above those which apply to the existing offence under section 52. In line with this, it is considered that consequential disqualification should apply to this new offence also, that is, where a person is convicted twice in any three-year period. That is what is provided for by the third amendment to the Second Schedule of the 1961 Act.
I feel it is quite clear that a number of quite serious cases has escaped because of the fact that there was this big gap between the penalties for the two types of offence that existed up to now and it is necessary to have this third intermediate classification of careless driving.