[PR] Fifteen drivers taken off road as gardai gear for blitz

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/6830644?view=Eircomnet

Fifteen drivers taken off road as gardai gear for blitz
From:The Irish Independent
Saturday, 26th November, 2005

Tom Brady, Security Editor

FIFTEEN motorists are currently banned from driving after building up the maximum 12 penalty points.

Another 181 are in the 'danger zone'. The latest figures were revealed last night as the gardai prepared to launch a six-week Christmas and New Year safety blitz.

The crackdown on the roads gets under way from midnight tomorrow night and will continue until midnight on January 8.

Gardai hope the additional patrolling will help keep the total number of deaths on the roads this year below the 400 barrier, which has not been breached since 2001 when the fatality toll jumped to 411. Last year, the death toll reached 374 and if present trends continue the figure could rise to 400 by the end of next month.

A total of 354 people have been killed to date this year - up 19 on the corresponding period last year - with 29 dead so far this month, which is equal to the toll for all of November last year.

Statistics obtained by the Irish Independent last night show 278,779 motorists are carrying penalty points on their driving licences.

A breakdown of the table disclosed that five of the 15 banned motorists are from Dublin, with two each from Wexford, Laois and Galway; while the rest are from Cork, Louth, Limerick and Waterford.

The two drivers on 11 points - which is one short of losing their licences - are from Wexford and Donegal; while of those on 10 points almost a third are from Dublin. Cork, Wexford and Kerry also feature prominently.

The maximum offenders all lost their driving licences for an automatic six months as a result.

Separate statistics for accumulated penalty points since the system was introduced at the end of October 2002 show the vast majority - 294,343 - are handed out by the gardai for speeding offences.

The total of 320,123 also includes 22,152 points for not complying with seatbelt regulations, 1,257 for driving without insurance, 195 for careless driving and 86 for dangerous driving.

Driving without insurance earns five points for the offender, which accounts for the relatively low "odd" numbers in the accompanying table.

An analysis of the seatbelt offences shows 752 were penalised for not having a front-seat child belt in use, 60 for no child restraint, 1,219 for no safety belt for children in the rear and 89 for no rear child restraint.

Meanwhile, the festive blitz will focus on four key issues: drink driving, speeding, seat belts and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians.

Gardai can issue on-the-spot fines to pedestrians who are found to be either jaywalking, on the wrong side of the road or failing to wear a reflector jacket in a badly lit-up area. Seventy per cent of deaths are due to incidents taking place between 10pm and 4am.

mike65

If a stack of drivers get put off the roads over the Xmas/New Year crackdown then maybe the propaganda/fear factor aspect of the points system will finally start to make a difference. I'm sure the fact hardly anyone has been banned is why deaths are back up near 400.

Mike.

silverside

Victor wrote:

Gardai can issue on-the-spot fines to pedestrians who are found to be either jaywalking, on the wrong side of the road or failing to wear a reflector jacket in a badly lit-up area

???

There's no law that forces people to wear reflector jackets

Or Is there??

Next they'll be passing laws to make people wear warm jumpers in winter, and to carry umbrellas in the rain...

Maskhadov

We need a bigger traffic corps and ALL of the driving offences added to the penality points system. That along with lot of motorists being banned would surely help the fatalities

parsi

Yes it was great (sarcasm) to see them this evening at the end of the Commons Road in Cork just after the 100 sign with their speed guns catching the poor feckers accelerating out of the 60 into the 100 and up the hill.

Strangely enough they didn't seem to be out a bit later on when it was darker and the number of one-eyed bandits was very high. Or they were nowhere to be seen in Raheen when 4 artics from Breen Transport decided to join up in convoy. Nor were they around going through Buttevant and beyond where a tractor had a couple mile tailback because it couldn't be bothered pulling in. They weren't around educating people how to use the new 2+1 lanes between Rathduff and Mallow and point out that its not on to drop to 70km/h in the single lane and then go up to 105 when you have a dual lane and then back to 70 again...