Motorists in the capital top penalty points league

Dublin drivers have clocked up more penalty points per capita since the start of the year than motorists in any other county.

Drivers in the capital have accumulated an average of 1.5 penalty points per person, according to figures gathered from the Road Safety Authority website.

From January to May, drivers in Dublin received nearly 728,000 penalty points.

Kilkenny has the second worst penalty points record so far this year, with just under one per person.

Galway City has the lowest penalty point to population rate, with just over half a penalty point per person living there.

The total number of penalty points collected by Galwegians nears 133,000.

Drivers in Cork City have racked up 289,639 penalty points so far this year, while drivers in Waterford have received 79,804 points.

Director of policy at AA Ireland Conor Faughnan said he was a surprised at the variation in penalty points issued across cities.

“This is a new one on me. We have noticed that there does tend to be an urban and commuter area bias when it comes to penalty points though.

“It is also worth noting that 2012 will be the first full year when speed monitoring cameras are in full effect.”

In addition, a total of 259 Dublin City drivers have racked up 12 penalty points so far this year and have been put off the road.

Only one driver in both Monaghan and Offaly has received 12 points.

So far this year, no drivers in Leitrim have picked up 12 penalty points.

In all cities, there was a notable drop in penalty points from January to February, with most dropping by almost 50%.

Mr Faughnan said it is unusual for there to be this much of a difference between two months. “I am a little surprised by this. Enforcement would have stayed the same between January and February.”

In the past year, there were 190 times more driver offences than vehicle offences per month.

The total number of driver offences so far this year is 968,596, while there have been 5,049 vehicle offences.

This does not include Dec 2011 figures, which are not available on the RSA website.

January 2012 was the worst month for driver offences, with a total of 1,786,018 penalty points given out. In the same month, there were only 9,894 vehicle offences.