There are almost 8,000 drivers on Ireland’s roads who have multiple concurrent disqualifications on their licences but continue to flout the law by driving.
That was the situation last August when research compiled by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) found that the licences of 7,651 drivers had multiple banning orders on them. The previous year, 1,767 disqualification notices were issued to drivers who were driving while banned.
The research, which was based on a survey of the National Vehicle and Driver File, a database of the State’s 2.6 million drivers and 2.5 million vehicles, and the RSA’s own administration of driver licences, found that banned drivers are responsible for killing between 11 and 14 other people every year.
The survey concentrated on drivers who had been ordered off the roads following convictions for driving while drunk and/or causing the death or serious injury of another person. Many appear simply to ignore their convictions and continue driving even after they are caught again.
Some of the banned drivers who carry on driving are professional drivers behind the wheels of public transport vehicles, such as buses, or service vehicles, including vans and lorries. In most such instances, it is believed that their employers, if the drivers are not self-employed, are unaware of their criminal convictions and consequent disqualification from driving.
Snapshot
A snapshot of the behaviour of banned drivers is contained in detailed research carried out last year by the RSA. It found that nearly all disqualified drivers – almost 98 per cent – ignore written requests from the authorities to surrender their driving licences on foot of their convictions and sentencing.
Refusing to surrender a licence when asked by a lawful authority is a criminal offence, but, because there appear to be no consequences, banned drivers do not respond to the letters, do not hand over their licences and are assumed to be carrying on driving illegally.
The RSA has concluded that “a high percentage of drivers convicted by the courts continue to drive with impunity, ignoring their driving ban”.
Attacking what it describes in the research as “killer driving behaviour”, the RSA says it wants to create a “name and shame” list or register of disqualified drivers, which it would publish on its website, in similar fashion to the tax defaulter lists published by the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.
In seeking to create a register of banned motorists, the RSA has sought advice from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, which is understood to have expressed concern about the right to privacy of disqualified drivers but to have indicated also how such concerns could be allayed.
"If we follow all the steps indicated to us by the Data Commissioner, we don't believe that any complaint will be validated," said RSA chief executive Moyagh Murdock.
Names of all drivers
Minister for Transport Shane Ross told The Irish Times last month that he intends to publish the names of all drivers convicted of drink-driving and those disqualified from driving.
“The idea of shaming people is, quite honestly, often more powerful than fining them or issuing penalty points,” he said. “In certain areas, there is a huge amount of embarrassment about being convicted for drink-driving.”
The RSA’s research analysis revealing the extent of the problem threw up some startling figures. At the end of 2015, there were on record a total of 41,713 disqualifications applied to 22,674 drivers, suggesting a high level of non-compliance and multiple bans.
Every month, of the 150 summonses, on average, issued by the Garda to drivers without a licence, 30 per cent are to drivers who are already banned.
In the 18 months after January 1st, 2015, 700 professional drivers were banned, but more than 100 of them also received fixed-penalty notices, indicating that they continued to drive despite their disqualification.
