Dangerous drivers: one-in-four gets off

[vdc]

В сегодняшней газете напечатано

ONE-in-four people charged with dangerous driving is being let off the hook because of difficulties with serving summonses.

New figures obtained by the Irish Independent also reveal that thousands of alleged drink drivers have escaped punishment for the same reason in recent years.

The revelation sparked outrage last night as three more people died on the roads over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Campaign groups and opposition TDs called for more action to compel alleged road traffic offenders to appear in court.

Difficulties serving a summons contributed to almost a quarter of the 10,100 dangerous driving cases taken in 2007 and 2008 being either withdrawn or struck out at district court level.

Another 3,000 people facing drink driving charges also had their cases struck out or withdrawn in the same period.

Garda and legal sources said difficulty serving summonses was the main reason behind the cases not going ahead.

The most common category escaping prosecution include those who change address, give gardai false addresses and people with migrant lifestyles such as students and foreign nationals.

It is also suspected that a sizeable number of people falsely claim that they never received their summons.

A senior garda said: "It can take weeks and months for a summons to be issued . . . and people can have moved from their given address in that time making it very difficult to serve a summons on them."

Road safety campaigner Gertie Shields of Mothers Against Drunk Driving described the problem as "a disgrace".

Mrs Shields, who lost her daughter Paula when a drunk driver hit the minibus in which she was travelling, killing six of the eight passengers, said: "Something has to be done to plug the loopholes.

"The law has to work, no matter who is involved. It is shocking that something like this is happening in this day and age."

Fine Gael transport spokesman Fergus O'Dowd said the situation was "a scandal and totally undermines the enforcement regime.

"If motorists believe they can get away with bad driving, many of them will," he said.

"It appears that part of the difficulty is that foreign national motorists do not have an Irish driving licence. It should be a precondition that anyone resident in Ireland must get an Irish licence to make it easier to trace them and apply the full range of penalties."

Urgent

Mr O'Dowd called on the Government to work with An Post to set up a new delivery system for court summonses and fixed charge penalty notices. He said the situation was just one of a number of road safety issues that needed urgent attention.

"We still don't have a nationwide network of speed cameras," he said.

"Only one-in-three drivers with 12 penalty points is surrendering their driving licence. This is because motorists are required to hand over the licence themselves, rather than have it collected by gardai.
"Road deaths are declining, but there are still far too many fatalities," he said.

A spokesman for the Road Safety Authority said: "The RSA understands that it is not possible to serve a summons in all cases. However, we would like to see such situations kept to the absolute minimum."

The Department of Transport declined to comment, saying it was a garda matter.

Of the 10,100 people who were prosecuted for dangerous driving in the past two years, more than 6,000 were convicted, including 580 who were jailed or otherwise detained. More than 2,000 were fined, and 430 were acquitted.

A total of 55,700 people were charged with drink driving in 2007 and 2008, with 50,200 convictions.

Of these, more than 22,000 were fined and just under 1,200 were jailed or sent to a detention centre. Almost 1,700 people were acquitted.