Drivers using loophole to avoid points

THOUSANDS of motorists are suspected of using a loophole in the law to escape penalty points by claiming a driver with a non-Irish licence was at the wheel.

The Automobile Association said it rejected figures released by the Gardaí recently that suggested one in four drivers who committed a penalty points offence could not be given points because they were foreigners.

AA public affairs manager Conor Faughnan said the truth was more likely that many Irish drivers caught speeding, running red lights or committing other photographed offences were getting friends, acquaintances and workmates with non-Irish licences to claim they were driving instead.

“We know from other sources that non-nationals make up 10% of the population and one in eight of the workforce yet supposedly they make up one in four of offending drivers.

“That would mean that individuals from outside the State are more than double the accident risk of Irish drivers. I don’t believe that. They certainly don’t show up in the fatalities at that rate.

“So the other conclusion you have to draw is that there is a widespread practice of individuals volunteering out-of-State licences to get someone else off the hook,” said Mr Faughnan.

Almost 440,000 drivers committed penalty points offences since the system began in 2002 but according to Garda statistics, 108,000 of them held a licence from Northern Ireland, Britain, eastern Europe or further afield. They can be fined but penalty points cannot be applied.

The AA, however, has come up with a proposal for a parallel system it says would easily close the loophole.

“The driving licence is simply used as a unique reference number for the driver. Every foreign licence also has a unique number so if a parallel record was kept of those numbers each time a foreign licence was produced to a garda, a record could be kept of the holder of that licence.

“You wouldn’t have any say over what that driver did in another country but you could put them off the road here the same as any Irish driver who accumulated maximum points.”

The proposal, which Mr Faughnan said had been cleared by legal experts, has been submitted to the Road Safety Authority and the Department of Transport. A department spokeswoman said it would be considered in the context of the next national road safety strategy, which was being drawn up.