Plans to increase penalties for road offences over bank holiday weekends

Road safety data shows bank holiday weekends have a higher level of road deaths and serious injuries linked to driving offences.

Motorists who commit traffic offences like speeding or not wearing a seat belt on bank holiday weekends will face higher penalty points under the proposed new legislation.

Minister of State at the Department of Transport Jack Chambers will bring forward proposals to Cabinet tomorrow.

He is also planning to introduce a range of other measures to address the recent increase in fatalities and serious injuries occurring on Irish roads.

Under the new Road Traffic Measures Bill 2023, powers would be granted to vary the number of penalty points during specific times when road safety risks are higher.

It’s understood that the legislation will likely come into place until later next year.

Minister Chambers is to outline to his Cabinet colleagues how increasing points for specified periods is likely to have a positive impact on driver behaviour.

How much penalty points are to increase by are not outlined in the proposal going to Cabinet tomorrow, the legislation just allows for the variation at this point.

The proposed legislation also contains measures to end an existing anomaly within the penalty points system where motorists who are caught committing multiple offences at the same time only receive penalty points for the higher offence.

Road safety data shows bank holiday weekends have a higher level of road deaths and serious injuries linked to driving offences.

There were 46 fatal or serious injury collisions over the February, June and August bank holiday weekends this year.

Data also shows, there were almost 10,000 speeding detections over the same weekends.

It’s understood the move to increase penalty points for specific periods like bank holiday weekends has been successfully introduced in other jurisdictions including Australia.

Other proposals being brought by Minister Chambers include a change to intoxicant testing rules whereby gardaí would be mandatorily required to test for drugs at the scene of road collisions.

He is also preparing legislation to implement the recommendations in the recent speed limit review, which reduces baseline speed limits on rural roads as well as national secondary roads and roads in built-up and residential areas.

The Road Safety Strategy which was published in 2021, has a stated ambition of reducing road deaths on Irish roads by 50% by 2030.