HELPDESK

Answering all your motoring queries

Grounds for removal of penalty points?

From MPL: Some two years ago, on my first drive on the M1, I received two penalty points. The place was a construction site at the time and signage was poor.

I was doing 97km/h in the area between Whitehall and the airport roundabout.

Subsequently, I read an article in your column which gave me hope but to no avail. When I applied for the removal of the two points, I was told the legal position had been rectified one week before I offended and that the penalty point was in order.

Some two months ago, there was another article on the matter which gave me more hope.

I wrote to the licensing Department in Ballina and they told me they had no news on this matter but that I should keep reading the newspapers!

Could you tell me whether there has been any change in the matter. I would appreciate any news you can give me.

Our colleague Tim O’Brien has been looking into the matter and he writes:

Just under 700 summons were struck out by Dublin District Court in November 2008, after the Garda approached the judge and indicated that there was a question over the legality of the speed limit.

The cases were dismissed because the relevant local authority had failed to publish speed limit changes in Iris Oifigiúil, the State journal.

It should be noted that the cases relating to the M1 which were struck out were limited to alleged offences covering the period between the making of the limit on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007, and its publication in Iris Oifigiúil on November 21st, 2008.

The limit in question was the 80km/h limit between the Coolock interchange and the airport interchange.

It would also appear that the following applies:

1. For the vast majority of those summonsed, there would be no issue for the courts as the drivers would have paid their fines and accepted their penalty points. These people may now apply to the Garda, citing the judgments of the District Court, which were in the week to November 18th, 2008, and asking that their penalty points be lifted and fines returned. There is precedent for this.

2. Of the few who went to court, the vast majority tended to plead guilty. For these, and for those who contested the summons but were convicted, the date for an appeal has now passed. Applications for an extension of time may be entertained and information on this is available from individual courts offices.

The reader needs to examine the date of the alleged offence and, if it is within the period, apply either to the Garda or to the courts.

From GY: A report in last week states that the mutual recognition of penalty points is now unlikely because of constitutional issues.

Did no one spot this before? Have they not been reading the Constitution up at the Department of Transport? Is there now no chance that Northern drivers can be properly penalised for speeding on our roads?

The issue applies to all non-nationals and, in fairness to Northern drivers, those from the Republic also have a tendency to speed in the North when they know they will not face any points. There is to be recognition of driving bans, but there is a constitutional issue because traffic offences are regarded in Irish law as criminal offences and, as such, there is an entitlement to a trial.

However, that is probably not the only reason. As my colleague David Labanyi pointed out in this supplement last August, a report by the British Department of Transport at the time found that only 30 per cent of driver licence records held by the Irish National Vehicle Driver File (NVDF) in Shannon had the correct address for motorists. One issue identified was the absence of the requirement for a driver in the Republic to inform the NVDF when they change address.

For penalty point harmonisation to succeed, licencing authorities require a “high degree of assurance” that the address details of the registered owner of a car can be linked to the driver when a penalty point offence is detected.