A district court judge has said he is “not surprised” more than 500 disqualified drivers were involved in collisions causing serious injury or death in recent years, and prosecutions should result for failure to surrender licences in court.
Road Safety Authority figures show there were 521 drivers disqualified at the time they received convictions for dangerous driving causing serious injury or death in the period January 2013-March 2015.
The judge, who spoke to The Irish Times on condition of anonymity, said the numbers were down to a pattern of behaviour among offenders and a lack of policing – but that the system "can be fixed".
“If somebody drives without insurance and they’re caught, they’re disqualified,” he said. “Deciding to drive again is just a continuation of that pattern of behaviour.
“Judges aren’t responsible for enforcement. That’s a Garda matter. There needs to be more road checkpoints. If someone in a rural town is disqualified, everyone will know about it – but it’s much more difficult in the city.”
Courts Service figures show just under 89 per cent of disqualified drivers’ licence details were not recorded in court between January 2013 and March 2015. In addition, 96 per cent did not surrender their licence in court.
“The non-production of the licence in court is actually an offence in itself,” said the judge. “There could be greater steps taken by the authorities to prosecute people for that. It would address that problem.
“If people become aware that you have to bring your licence to court it would become a state of common knowledge and you would find the court would impose sanctions on people in relation to the failure to do that. That’s what needs to happen.”
He said the number of people who come before his court and surrender their licence is somewhere in the region of 30-50 per cent.
Fixed-charge notices
The judge also criticised the system for administering fixed-charge notices by regular post, as offenders are coming before the courts for non-payment and claiming not to have received them.
“If somebody arrives into court and swear they never received it, how do you then convict somebody and give them four penalty points?” he said.
“It would be unfair. I wouldn’t have time to grill him on whether or not he got the letter. You have to take them at face value.”
Asked whether the number of people who make such claims was credible, the judge said: “No it’s not. The gardaí did a test themselves where they sent out 1,000 letters to members of the force and somewhere in the region of 990 arrived.
“It would be far better if registered post or certified post was used. If someone changes their address, they are obliged to tell the motor registration authority that their address has changed. But people are entitled to the benefit of the doubt.”
