1 in 7 motorists escape penalties

ALMOST one in seven motorists detected of committing a penalty point offence escape any punishment as gardaí are unable to apply penalty points to the offending driver.

A total of 184,828 motorists have avoided penalty points after committing a road traffic offence because of the inability of gardaí to impose such a sanction.

They account for 14.8% of all penalty points issued between the start of the scheme in October 2002 and the end of 2008.