31 new offences that will occur penalty points

TillyT

Just wondering what peoples opinions are on all of these new penalty points . To be honest I think that some are ridiculous and that the gardai can do you on many of these if he\she feel like it!

From Saturday, April 1st, 31 new offences will incur penalty points.
* Dangerous Overtaking - 2
* Failure to act in accordance with a Gardai signa1 - 1
* Failure to stop a vehicle before stop Sign/yield line - 2
* Failure to yield right of way at a yield Sign/yield line - 2
* Crossing continuous white line - 2
* Entry by driver into hatched marked area of Roadway, e.g. carriageway reduction lane - 1
* Failure to obey traffic lights - 2
* Failure to obey traffic rules at railway level crossing - 2
* Driving on the hard shoulder on a motorway - 2
* Driving a vehicle on a motorway against the flow Of traffic - 2
* Driving a HGV or bus on the outside lane on a Motorway - 1
* Failure to drive on the left hand side of the road - 1
* Failure to obey requirements at junctions, e.g. not being in the correct lane when turning onto another road - 1
* Failure to obey requirements regarding reversing of vehicles, e.g. reversing from minor road onto main road - 1
* Driving on a footpath - 1
* Driving on a cycle track - 1
* Failure to turn left when entering a roundabout - 1
* Driving on a median strip, e.g. boundary between two carriageways - 1
* Failure to stop for school warden sign - 1
* Failure to stop when so required by a member of the Garda Siochana - 2
* Failure to leave appropriate distance between you and the vehicle in front - 2
* Failure to yield - 2
* Driving without reasonable consideration - 2
* Failure to comply with mandatory traffic signs at junctions - 1
* Failure to comply with prohibitory traffic signs at junctions - 1
* Failure to comply with keep left/right signs - 1
* Failure to comply with traffic lane markings - 1
* Illegal entry onto a one-way street - 1

Henry Ford III

I think they are reasonable, but like most laws they'll not be evenly enforced so are largely pointless.

mackerski

None of the offences are new, only the penalties.

Dermot

mike65

* Driving a vehicle on a motorway against the flow Of traffic - 2

How about Instant Death for that one?

Mike.

sandyg

If you look at the rules of the road book you will see that 99% of the new traffic offences are part of the rules of the road anyway. So people should be adhering to them anyway:rolleyes:

Downtime

Some of the sanctions are a bit rediculous e.g.

Driving a vehicle on a motorway against the flow Of traffic - 2 is surely a far more dangerous offence than Failure to stop a vehicle before stop Sign/yield line - 2 - should be moe points for driving against traffic - opinions?

Also I know you should stop at a stop sign but didn't think you had to at a yield sign

Alun

Downtime wrote:

Also I know you should stop at a stop sign but didn't think you had to at a yield sign

You don't ... I think that was a misprint. Should have read "* Failure to stop a vehicle before stop Sign/stop line - 2 "

Duiske

* Driving a vehicle on a motorway against the flow Of traffic - 2


This is ridiculous. If someone is stupid/crazy enough to barrel down a motorway into on-coming traffic, they should be automatically put off the road for a year and/or sent for psychological assessment.

Having said that, its probably put in there to stop the morons who drive past their intended off-ramp on the motorway, and then reverse back on the hard shoulder and pull onto the off-ramp.

edit : just noticed mike's comment on it

mackerski

Downtime wrote:

Also I know you should stop at a stop sign but didn't think you had to at a yield sign

What Alun said, mostly, but it may not be a misprint. You do have to stop at a yield sign when you end up having to yield. In these cases, you should come to a halt before the yield line, and crossing it is technically an infringement of the other driver's right of way.

Dermot

TillyT

I know that these are part of the rules of the road - thats not the point i was trying to make. I just wonder how they can justify giving penalty points for some of the items mentioned above. For example I'm sure it has happened to many of us when driving somewhere we've never been before you may accidently be in the wrong lane at traffic lights because you couldnt see the road markings until at the top of the lights where you then discover it says left turn only...... "Failure to comply with keep left/right signs - 1" ............................

Downtime

mackerski wrote:

What Alun said, mostly, but it may not be a misprint. You do have to stop at a yield sign when you end up having to yield. In these cases, you should come to a halt before the yield line, and crossing it is technically an infringement of the other driver's right of way.

Dermot

Yeah just checked it - should read stop line.

maidhc

If all these were enforced robocop style i'm not sure if anyone would be left on the road. Almost any given driver will infringe at least one each week if the vague ones are read strictly.

mackerski

TillyT wrote:

I know that these are part of the rules of the road - thats not the point i was trying to make. I just wonder how they can justify giving penalty points for some of the items mentioned above. For example I'm sure it has happened to many of us when driving somewhere we've never been before you may accidently be in the wrong lane at traffic lights because you couldnt see the road markings until at the top of the lights where you then discover it says left turn only...... "Failure to comply with keep left/right signs - 1" ............................

Finding yourself in the wrong lane isn't an offence. Proceeding in a direction at odds with the markings of that lane is dangerous and an offence. In your original post you seemed to suggest that some of the offences could be pinned on you at the whim of a guard. If that's so (and I'd be interested to know which ones you had in mind) then it's an old problem, not a new one, since the laws have been on the books for quite some time.

Dermot

BrianD3

I notice dangerous and illegal parking is not on the list. Often drivers will be forced to cross a continuous white line (and therefore risk a crash and/or penalty points) because some moron has decided to park where he shouldn't.

There should be at least 2 penalty points for dangerous parking.

mackerski

maidhc wrote:

If all these were enforced robocop style i'm not sure if anyone would be left on the road. Almost any given driver will infringe at least one each week if the vague ones are read strictly.

Then perhaps it's about time they stopped. It says a lot about the driving culture in this country that so many people can look at a list of very basic traffic offences and sulk at the idea of being held to them. How many of the sulkers advocate castration for motorway speeders, I wonder?

BrianD3 wrote:

I notice dangerous and illegal parking is not on the list. Often drivers will be forced to cross a continuous white line (and therefore risk a crash and/or penalty points) because some moron has decided to park where he shouldn't.

My recollection is that the full text of the section that defines the solid line infraction provides a get-out for cases where an obstruction necessitates it.

Dermot

maidhc

mackerski wrote:

Then perhaps it's about time they stopped. It says a lot about the driving culture in this country that so many people can look at a list of very basic traffic offences and sulk at the idea of being held to them.

I agree, but motorists are people, people make mistakes and do stupid things on an alarmingly regular basis. I know I do stupid things when driving; some embarassingly so. "Driving without reasonable consideration" is very subjective in a "how long is a piece of string" sort of way, while what constitutes "dangerous overtaking" is certainly not agreed since all overtaking is dangerous to a point.

mackerski

maidhc wrote:

If all these were enforced robocop style i'm not sure if anyone would be left on the road. Almost any given driver will infringe at least one each week if the vague ones are read strictly.

Then perhaps it's about time they stopped. It says a lot about the driving culture in this country that so many people can look at a list of very basic traffic offences and sulk at the idea of being held to them. (Edit: it's even more significant that both press and personal comment on this issue almost always refers to the affected offences as "new"). How many of the sulkers advocate castration for motorway speeders, I wonder?

BrianD3 wrote:

I notice dangerous and illegal parking is not on the list. Often drivers will be forced to cross a continuous white line (and therefore risk a crash and/or penalty points) because some moron has decided to park where he shouldn't.

My recollection is that the full text of the section that defines the solid line infraction provides a get-out for cases where an obstruction necessitates it.

Dermot

mackerski

maidhc wrote:

I agree, but motorists are people, people make mistakes and do stupid things on an alarmingly regular basis. I know I do stupid things when driving; some embarassingly so. "Driving without reasonable consideration" is very subjective in a "how long is a piece of string" sort of way, while what constitutes "dangerous overtaking" is certainly not agreed since all overtaking is dangerous to a point.

Read the Road Traffic Acts and you'll feel better. Guards are only allowed to exercise a vendetta in accordance with those - all of the listed offences have more complete descriptions than the short names listed in the points table. A Garda wanting to pin any offence on you understands his burden of proof before the courts. TBH, if he's looking to find fault, he'd usually be better off looking for roadworthiness issues with your car. (car owners being people, and people being careless and not always paying enough attention to tyres, oil, dirty number plates etc...).

Dermot

SouperComputer

Will this reduce accidents though? On a rule by rule basis, I doubt it. It may cause some drivers to pay more attention though.

Okay, wrong side of a motorway is nasty, but TBH if you end up in that situation a couple of points are the least of your worries!

Driving on a cycle track is an interesting one. I can think of a couple of junctions where you have no choice to put a set of wheels in there, unless you want to put two wheels in another lane. This is of course provided there are no cyclists about!

I think it could be a good start if it is resonably enforced, by that I mean with safety in mind.

el tel

If these penalties were enforced and applied with 100% rigour I'd say that the vast majority of Irish drivers could lose their licence on any given journey.

On a side note, could any of these rules be breached during the driving test and a pass still given?

mackerski

SouperComputer wrote:

Will this reduce accidents though?

Only if muppetty driving and a resentment/ignorance of the most basic road-traffic laws contribute to accidents. Personally, I'd have thought that you could have safe roads under these adverse conditions as long as the muppetty driving was done slowly enough, but there's no accounting for lawmakers.

SouperComputer wrote:

Driving on a cycle track is an interesting one. I can think of a couple of junctions where you have no choice to put a set of wheels in there, unless you want to put two wheels in another lane.

These would be the cycle tracks with broken white line, yes? Once again, your trusty road traffic act comes to the rescue. That's not an offence, ergo no points.

The more I read on this thread, the more convinced I am of two things:

a) that those who predict mass licence-loss are correct
b) that this is an extremely Good Thing.

Dermot

SouperComputer

mackerski wrote:

The more I read on this thread, the more convinced I am of two things:

a) that those who predict mass licence-loss are correct
b) that this is an extremely Good Thing.

Dermot

LOL, you might be right there!


Not sure about the broken white line, its a junction near Blanch shopping centre. Its a good few months since Ive driven the road so I can't honestly rememeber.

Hagar

TillyT wrote:

* Driving a vehicle on a motorway against the flow Of traffic - 2

I would have thought this to be more dangerous than exceeding a speed limit yet the number of points are the same?

TillyT wrote:

* Driving on a footpath - 1
* Failure to stop for school warden sign - 1

Driving on a footpath or ploughing through a school crossing , both less serious than exceeding the speed limit?

I think speeding must be the demon... The answer? Get more radar guns and collect nice fat fines :mad:

If you are a careful and safe driver, then you will not get any points..


that's the whole idea of the scheme.

el tel

Deleted User wrote:

If you are a careful and safe driver, then you will not get any points..


that's the whole idea of the scheme.

But as this is Ireland it will be an unworkable mess.

On a Sunday night about 3 weeks ago around 11.30 pm I was tailgated from the end of the M1 all the way down the Drumcondra Road by a Garda driving one of their vans. He did not appear to be responding to any emergency and wasn't going especially fast but from the time I saw him first until he finally made his illegal right turn off the Drumcondra Road he did all of the fillowing:


* Failure to stop a vehicle before stop Sign/yield line - 2
* Crossing continuous white line - 2
* Entry by driver into hatched marked area of Roadway, e.g. carriageway reduction lane - 1
* Failure to obey traffic lights - 2
* Failure to obey requirements at junctions, e.g. not being in the correct lane when turning onto another road - 1
* Failure to leave appropriate distance between you and the vehicle in front -
* Driving without reasonable consideration - 2
* Failure to comply with prohibitory traffic signs at junctions - 1
* Failure to comply with traffic lane markings - 1

redman

Whats the point ?(excuse the pun )

There isn't a proper Garda Traffic unit there to enforce the law as it stands anyway.

This is just more political points ahead of the next election to seem as if they are doing something.

It's not working now and I don't believe that this will reduce deaths or accidents on the road to any extent.

The law as it stands isn't being enforced now.

MrPudding

Hagar wrote:

I would have thought this to be more dangerous than exceeding a speed limit yet the number of points are the same?

I would think that if you were driving on the wrong side of the motorway you would attract more than the points for that offense, it is unlikely to be your only offense on that occasion.

What I mean is you might also get landed with dangerous driving or driving without due car and attention.

MrP

mackerski

SouperComputer wrote:

Not sure about the broken white line, its a junction near Blanch shopping centre. Its a good few months since Ive driven the road so I can't honestly rememeber.

Junction of Snugborough Road and old Navan Road. It's a broken line alright. Hard to know what benefit it could ever bring a cyclist.

Dermot