Loophole to avoid penalty points and mandatory 6 month ban

Del2005 · 21-11-2023 10:58am #1

So apparently if you are nearing 12 points on your licence and get caught committing a driving offence you can go to court and get banned for a day of your choosing and avoid a 6 month ban. Again out of touch judges are making a joke of our justice system.

Yes the law let's people apply for a short ban instead of points, but I can't think of any valid reason why a judge should grant it to someone who has shown that they didn't learn from the other times that they were caught. If you need to drive for family reasons or any of the other sob stories they BS judges with then you should be the best driver on the road not the one about to be banned.

https://www.newstalk.com/news/legal-loophole-lets-drivers-avoid-penalty-points-by-accepting-one-day-disqualifications-1616375

coylemj · 21-11-2023 4:06pm

Again out of touch judges are making a joke of our justice system.

I'd say it's less about 'out of touch judges' and more about a skilled lawyer applying a heavy dose of moral blackmail to the judge by claiming that his client has a wife and so many kids and will lose his job if his penalty points go over 12 and he gets disqualified.

The same moral arm twisting worked time and time again on juries hearing cases of dangerous driving causing death or serious injury (which carries a mandatory disqualification on conviction) so they had to introduce the new offence of 'careless' driving causing death'. An Irish solution to an Irish problem!

Because, in order to spare the defendant from a disqualification, juries were reducing the original dangerous driving causing death or serious injury charge to (S.52) careless driving. This meant that, when imposing a penalty, the judge had to treat the case as a very minor offence, even if someone had been killed or permanently disabled as a result of the defendant's driving.

This is also why they introduced mandatory disqualification for drink driving offences - before they did, judges were suckers for the sob story and they only way to fix it was to take the decision out of their hands.

mikeecho · 21-11-2023 4:36pm

There are plenty of loopholes in the amended road traffic act .

I've alluded to them in the past, but I won't go into specifics, because there's always some keyboard warrior or bar stool lawyer who knows better.

And it takes way to long to try and explain them in a single post.

1) The drug testing thing is a big one, ie.. what happens if you refuse a roadside test.

2) caught by a camera, there's a few possible ways outta that. ( I won't expand because that would be telling someone to do something illegal)

Richmond Ultra · 22-11-2023 5:37am

The judges quote and reference Staunton's book in court. It's common practice.

hoodie6029 · 22-11-2023 10:09am

Saw this on the IT yesterday too.

It is ridiculous that a Judge would completely ignore the spirit of the Law which is an essential part of interpreting a Law and the case before them. It is very sharp practice.

The judges know that no minister signed a law with the intention of giving a dangerous driver a one day ban. It’s the equivalent of being suspended from school. Might as well make them stand outside the door and give them 100 lines. A mockery.

The judges know that the RSA or Gardaí won’t risk appealling these cases as they are rare and they don’t want to risk a deluge of cases if the appeal goes against them. It’s happened before, print outs from the speed gun, drink driving docs not in Irish and so many more over the years have caused headaches (to put it mildly).

So many of our Laws for driving date to the 60’s and were amended so many times, a codified law is well overdue to stop this messing.

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/11/21/traffic-laws-loophole-means-drivers-avoid-penalty-points-by-being-disqualified-for-a-day/