500 banned drivers in crashes that led to injury and death

Nichard Dixon

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/500-banned-drivers-in-crashes-that-led-to-injury-and-death-34130421.html

A total of 521 drivers were disqualified at the time they received their conviction for dangerous driving causing death or serious injury between January 2013 and March of this year.

This article is an indictment of motoring law enforcement in this state.

While they have tightened things up recently, they really need to get a handle on the small minority who don't give a damn.

Ken.

I have no idea how this would work but their should be some way of making it so you have to show a current valid licence when buying a car.

walshyn93

Anyone who kills someone while disqualified should be given life.

jimgoose

ken wrote: »

I have no idea how this would work but their should be some way of making it so you have to show a current valid licence when buying a car.

I believe that's the way in America.

Clearlier

ken wrote: »

I have no idea how this would work but their should be some way of making it so you have to show a current valid licence when buying a car.

You don't have to be able to drive to own a car or even to insure a car - I have a blind friend who owns a car and has it insured so that others can drive it.

Being brought straight to court if found to be driving while disqualified is a step in the right direction.

Timberrrrrrrr

ken wrote: »

I have no idea how this would work but their should be some way of making it so you have to show a current valid licence when buying a car.

Agree with you there and (I may be wrong) in the UK I believe you have to provide proof of insurance before buying a car but this wouldn't work with private sales. Anyone found guilty of driving while disqualified should get an automatic 3 month sentence or 500 hours community service and a lifetime ban.

spurious

Plus their names should be published in national papers, much like the tax defaulters. Public shaming, not two lines on page six of the Killasmeestia Bugle.

savagethegoat

(you are wrong)

what's needed is more technology and for gards to do the job they are paid for.

Frynge

Also get rid of this 10 days to produce bull****. If you are licenced, insured, taxed and nct'ed anyone who requires proof of that should be able to gather it within 5 mlns. Im sure there are a couple of database that would just need a UI upgrade to make it a simple thing.

seamus

The issue here really isn't enforcement so much as punishment.

Judges in this country are very slow to lay down proper punishments for breaking road traffic laws.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/circuit-court/man-fined-4-000-for-careless-driving-causing-death-of-woman-1.2288746

Break a red light, hit a tram and kill someone. €4,000 fine and apparently no driving ban. "Ah sure it was an easy mistake to make". Good man, Judge Nolan.

http://www.evoke.ie/news/irelands-worst-driver-247-convictions-no-jail

Drive the wrong way down a motorway while already banned for 30 years, with 247 previous driving conviction (including 9 hit-and-runs). That gets you a suspended sentence and a request to "stay in Cork there like a good lad". This guy should be held in a mental institution indefinitely.

The sentences are just too lenient. Driving while serving a ban should automatically incur a permanent ban and at least a year in jail, no questions. A traffic conviction for an incident where someone has died or been seriously injured should carry a five year ban minimum.

Atlantic Dawn

You see it countless times in the papers drivers with 20-30 year bans caught driving multiple times with no insurance and the judge takes the sob story and gives them suspended jail sentences.

It should be an automatic specified fine and jail time, the vehicle they are driving should also be seized and sold whether it belongs to them or was given to them for use by a friend.

ken

ken wrote: »

I have no idea how this would work but their should be some way of making it so you have to show a current valid licence when buying a car.

I don' see much value in this. Most likely the cars were owned before they were banned anyway and its easy for people to get other people to buy a car and then sell it to them etc if they really wanted to get around it.

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Agree with you there and (I may be wrong) in the UK I believe you have to provide proof of insurance before buying a car but this wouldn't work with private sales.

Definitely not for private sales anyway, I bought a car and was asked for nothing.

theteal

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Agree with you there and (I may be wrong) in the UK I believe you have to provide proof of insurance before buying a car

Sorry Timberrrrr (dunno if that's enough r's), definitely wrong, most places I've been to actually provide 7 days insurance free with the purchased car

MugMugs

Link vehicles to Licences and arm everything state owned with ANPR beaming right back to a command post.

Ambulances, Fire Brigades, Army Jeeps should all be ANPR'd and when they're back at depot automagically upload everything they have to a central data base. Cross reference what car is pinged to banned driver or out of tax or SORN'd vehicle and fine them. If they want to challenge it then put an appropriate process in place for them to do so.

seamus

MugMugs wrote: »

Link vehicles to Licences and arm everything state owned with ANPR beaming right back to a command post.

I tend to agree, but there are a lot of exploitable loopholes.

So you get a summons in the post showing you driving across the M50 and the records show your car had no insurance or tax.
You arrive in court, tell them that your neighbour borrowed the car that day. The image is too grainy to prove otherwise.

Case thrown out.

One issue is that while the normal Joes like you and I would be kept in line by these kinds of systems, the kind of people who drive while banned or without insurance, know how to get around the system. They simply don't care about getting caught. They know it'll be a summons in the post and some guy down the pub will tell them what to do to either dodge the conviction or get the judge's sympathy.

I think easier seizure and destruction powers would go some way to helping. So if someone is stopped and they can't prove the car is insured or taxed, or they can't convince the Gardai they have a licence, the Gardai have the power to seize at the roadside and crush it within 48 hours if the person can't prove they have the necessary documents. This is regardless of whether the car belongs to the driver.

It means that the habitual law breakers don't necessarily get punished by the courts, but the consequences are swift and painful enough to make them think twice.

GBX

MugMugs wrote: »

Link vehicles to Licences and arm everything state owned with ANPR beaming right back to a command post.

Ambulances, Fire Brigades, Army Jeeps should all be ANPR'd and when they're back at depot automagically upload everything they have to a central data base. Cross reference what car is pinged to banned driver or out of tax or SORN'd vehicle and fine them. If they want to challenge it then put an appropriate process in place for them to do so.

This might work - but you are automatically going to come up against those agencies saying "thats not our job" "We want more money to do it" even though there is no work involved

Boskowski

It shows that between detecting, arresting, sentencing and enforcing or lack of all these there is simply no deterrent here to keep the habitual law breakers in line. The system keeps you and me in line, but the habitual offenders simply don't give a cr@p and the system is unable to deal with that.
Whether the problem is systemic or not I don't know, but anecdotal evidence suggests the whole justice system is better suited to keep the ones making a buck from it well fed rather than to actually protect society. Which would make it also extremely difficult to reform.

MugMugs

seamus wrote: »

Case thrown out.

It would need a complete overhaul of the RTA 1962, serious investment, a pair of balls and the right type of person charging down all lanes on it.

What would probably happen is that it would be floated to a consultancy firm for consideration at serious cost, be rejected, the report lost, found again and then forgotten about because it was re sent on a Tuesday.

In an ideal world though. It would eradicate virtually most non compliance on the roads.

Jesus.

Clearlier wrote: »

I have a blind friend who owns a car and has it insured

How'd he get on at his driving test?

To Elland Back

Jesus. wrote: »

How'd he get on at his driving test?

Another miracle Jesus

CreepingDeath

We should copy what the English do, if caught driving a car while banned, then seize the car and crush it.

If they claim it's not their car then additionally prosecute the owner for giving permission, if they didn't have permission, charge them with theft.

At least I think I saw that on those English cops/motorway police documentaries. Maybe that was for unroadworthy vehicles.

Special Circumstances

Boskowski wrote: »

It shows that between detecting, arresting, sentencing and enforcing or lack of all these there is simply no deterrent here to keep the habitual law breakers in line. The system keeps you and me in line, but the habitual offenders simply don't give a cr@p and the system is unable to deal with that.
Whether the problem is systemic or not I don't know, but anecdotal evidence suggests the whole justice system is better suited to keep the ones making a buck from it well fed rather than to actually protect society. Which would make it also extremely difficult to reform.

Agree 100% - vested interests at work, why would they want to see their best customers lost through lengthy sentences or reform... legal eagles keep on creaming it, scummers keep on scumming and the only one who loses out is the man in middle of the two extremes.