Thousands of motorists escape penalty points

TENS of thousands of motorists have escaped penalty points while many more were not issued with a summons despite receiving a notice, the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report revealed yesterday.

Since penalty points were first introduced in late 2002, more than 65,000 images from fixed cameras were “spoiled” because of difficulties identifying registration numbers or due to technical difficulties.

The CAG report also revealed in the first 14 months of operation huge numbers of motorists did not bother to pay their fines and less than one in five of those then received summonses.

CAG John Purcell said: “While the fixed charges and penalty points measures have been in place for a relatively short period, my examination reveals operational, administrative and legal impediments to its smooth and effective use.”

He highlighted:

The low payment of fixed notices, 56% of 87,004 issued to end December 2003

The low summons rate for unpaid notices, 18% if over 48,000

The high rate of spoiled images, over 50,000 of 107,000 images to December 12, 2003

The inability to take action against company car drivers

The CAG reported some progress in 2004, including fixing defects in the cameras and film after it emerged some of the spoiled images were because of dirty lenses and problems with the chemical film developing solution.

While more than 50,000 were spoiled in 2003, this had dropped to 13,500 in the first five months of this year.

However, there are still large numbers evading penalty points because they have dirty, obscured or damaged plates, because they are driving foreign registered cars or simply they are driving a motorcycle.

Garda management has brought to the attention of the Department of Transport a loophole in the law that allows drivers of company cars to evade penalty points. Under present legislation, a company that does not nominate a driver of a particular car cannot be prosecuted. This happened in 235 cases in 2003.

Between October 2002 and December last year, more than 7,059 summonses for non-payment of fixed charges were issued but action was not taken in 1,523 cases on the direction of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The DPP gives no reasons for this decisions.

The CAG report also revealed the lack of a computer system, when penalty points were first introduced, led to thousands of motorists evading punishment for offences.

Under the legislation, fixed notices or summonses have to be issued within six months. The lack of a computer system before May last year, meant a backlog so 4500 fines were not issued.