Penalty points fiasco - Road safety system fails to deliver

THE penalty points system is a shambles. That’s the only conclusion to be drawn from an analysis carried out by the Public Accounts Committee which found that nearly half the photographs taken by garda speed cameras last year were useless.

To make matters worse, the report reaches the damning conclusion that the system has been hamstrung by administrative inefficiency.

Launched in a blaze of publicity four years ago, the scheme had the desired effect initially. Its impact on the death toll from speeding and drink driving was such that in the first year alone around 100 lives were estimated to be saved.