Death on our roads - Take private sector out of justice system

THIS MORNING at least another five families are mourning the death of a young person on our roads, while more await news of badly injured loved ones.

It will come as no comfort to them to realise that about half of the fines imposed on drivers found speeding are paid without the intervention of the courts.

But more than 40% of speeding penalties are not paid in the period that precludes the State taking court action against the offender.

Apart from the inefficiencies and waste of court time it sends out an ambiguous message about our commitment to road safety.

Though this has as much to do with the procedures embedded in our legal system — as was pointed out in a submission by the Courts Service to the Department of Transport’s statement of strategy for the next two years — it is an area where simple innovations could make a lot of difference.

There needs to be a situation where someone caught driving in a way that endangers other road users immediately knows their behaviour will not be tolerated, that ignoring the rules will cost them dearly and that ignoring the penalty imposed will cost them even more.

The payment of the penalty should be more or less immediate and if it is not then that penalty should be increased incrementally, culminating with the State’s refusal to renew offenders’ licences or to tax the vehicle involved unless the fines are paid.

All of this would be made easy if enforcement authorities had immediate, online access to every driving licence issued in the State — possibly even the EU.

Reference to this file would allow direct imposition of penalties and initiate a collection process that would give real teeth to our road safety campaigns.

None of this would or should undermine the right of an individual who feels they have been wronged to go to court to argue their case.

If you’re caught speeding, pay up, learn the lesson and don’t waste anyone’s time with vexatious arguments.

The Courts Service’s suggestion that a case of non-payment should be assigned to a private debt collection agency may not be one of their better proposals.

There is another worrying line in the submission: “When privatised speed cameras are introduced and detection levels increase, the number of summonses will rise considerably.”

This is a tacit admission that privatised private speed cameras are as much about profit as they are about road safety. This is another area surrendered to the private sector by the State that it should have retained within its own remit.

The administration of our justice system, even if it is the bottom rung of the ladder of that system, is no place for private enterprise. The objectivity needed to sustain any justice system is compromised when the profit ambitions of shareholders are even a minor concern in the process.

The fact we do not have an effective system of imposing and collecting penalties on dangerous drivers is one of the reasons for the unacceptable number of deaths on our roads — more than 260 already this year.

Is it possible that this is another manifestation of integrated ticketing syndrome — a perfectly plausible and much desired process common in most advanced countries held up by the public service adverse to changing in the way things are done?