Plans to punish foreign drivers for road traffic offences are ‘unworkable’
Transport and Justice officials yesterday said a proposed European Union directive to improve cross-border enforcement of road safety measures applied to a “complex and difficult area,” primarily due to the different legal systems operating in EU member states.
The proposed legislation, an initiative of the French government, sought measures to enforce cross-border sanctions for speeding, drink driving, non-wearing of seatbelts and red light infringements, the offences which cause the vast majority of road fatalities and serious injuries within Europe.
It envisaged the establishment of procedures for the exchange of information on motorists and vehicles between countries where offences had been committed in one member state by a vehicle registered in another member state. However, it did not contain any proposal for how to deal with foreign motorists who failed to pay fines issued by the authorities in another country.
A Department of Transport official, Eilish Kennedy told the committee that while Ireland supported the core objective of the directive, the Government recognised that many details in the proposal raised major and fundamental difficulties.
The proposed directive would also have constitutional implications as it was not simply a question of changing road traffic legislation, she said.
It is understood that the proposed directive is effectively on hold as it is not part of the work programme of the Czech government which currently holds the presidency of the EU.
However, the committee heard that plans were at an advanced stage for the mutual recognition of driving offences of motorists between the authorities in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain. Thus, a motorist who loses his licence in Ireland will also be banned from driving in the other jurisdictions. However, similar plans for penalty points will take a bit longer.
Several TDs voiced concern that there was no effective mechanism in place to ensure that non-Irish motorists and foreign-registered vehicles here were subject to the same level of road safety scrutiny as Irish drivers and their cars.
Labour TD, Joe Costello said there was a lot of public annoyance that drivers of foreign-registered vehicles could also park illegally and run little risk of being punished.
