Any law more honoured in the breach than the observance is quickly brought into contempt. The legislation on those banned from driving is a case in point. Among those convicted for driving related offences and disqualified from driving, almost all have subsequently disobeyed the courts’ ruling. They have done so with impunity.
Although required to return their driving licence to the Road Safety Authority (RSA), the authority has found that 98 per cent of offenders fail to do so. A minority of banned drivers – including some convicted either for driving while drunk or for causing the death or serious injury of another person – have flouted the law, and carried on driving.
This widespread failure to respect and uphold the law has, however, both unfortunate and tragic consequences. Between 2008 and 2012, RSA research indicates that disqualified drivers were responsible for 7 per cent of fatal crashes - resulting in the loss of between 11 and 14 lives a year.
Criminal offence
The failure by disqualified drivers to surrender their licences is a criminal offence, yet carries no effective sanction. The law, as the statistics show, cannot be enforced to ensure the physical recovery of licences for a variety of reasons - shortage of Garda manpower, and refusal by offenders to obey the law. In a digital age the fact of a driver’s disqualification by the courts should enable the cancellation of his/her driving licence, with this information then included in the Garda Pulse system.
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The RSA has proposed the creation and publication of a name-and-shame online list of banned drivers. This would serve a similar function to the regular listing of tax defaulters by the Revenue Commissioners. The public identification of banned drivers would increase social pressure on offenders to obey the law. At present the offenders benefit from virtual anonymity, and break the law with impunity. Clearly, any list of disqualified drivers would have to satisfy legal privacy concerns. However, the present position – which tolerates non-compliance with the law and which exposes the public to an increased level of risk on the roads – is unacceptable and unsustainable.