Drink driving penalties - Hit-and-miss conviction system fatal

IT is a national disgrace that despite the fact that drink driving is one of the major killers on our roads, as many as three out of every 10 motorists arrested for the offence last year eluded the rigours of the law.

Effectively, almost one-third of those drivers - as many as 3,905 of them - who were callously indifferent to the lives and safety of other road users escaped with impunity.

Inevitably, they will reoffend and the fact that they thwarted the law compounds the belief that there is a certain ambivalence, or tolerance, towards getting behind a driving wheel while under the influence of alcohol.

It is an unpalatable fact that such drivers evaded the consequences of their mindless behaviour in many instances because of defective or unserved summonses, and differing court standards.

A very worrying pattern has emerged from statistics supplied by the Courts Service to this newspaper.

More than 1,600 cases were dismissed by judges and another 1,550 were struck out, while in Dublin and Cork 325 and 321 summonses respectively were not even served by gardaí.

Incredibly, virtually two-thirds of drivers charged with the offence in parts of Kerry avoided a conviction.

Not alone would it appear that the country has a multi-tiered system where drink driving is concerned, but there is a geographical element to it.

The unequivocal assertion last month by Justice Minister Michael McDowell that it is garda policy to prosecute any driver who provides a blood, urine or breath sample which exceeds the legal limit is shown to be a nonsense.

It is a fact, contrary to what the minister said, that a total of 742 motorists escaped a court appearance quite simply because the gardaí failed to serve a summons on the drivers. This is totally unacceptable, unprofessional and nothing short of a dereliction of duty - at least - where it occurs.

The fact that the policy to prosecute is far from being the perfect instrument he made it out to be, and the fact that district judges vary so much in their interpretations of the legislation, indicates that an urgent overhaul is needed.

Figures revealed earlier this week by this newspaper are borne out by the Courts Service, which showed quite a sharp deterioration in convictions for drink driving since 1999.

Between strikeout orders, cases dismissed, unserved summons and appeals that are reversed, the legal system governing drink driving is peppered with anomalies which ill-serve the safety of the public at large.

It is futile for the Government to undertake expensive television and advertising campaigns to make the public more aware and alert, if the very fundamentals are defective.

Equally, it is a waste of garda resources and a travesty to mount much-publicised road safety campaigns, only to allow so many guilty motorists escape simply because of their own indolence.

The public deserve much better from the gardaí and the courts because at the moment confidence that justice will be meted out is tentative.

It would appear that consequences for this offence depend on factors that have nothing whatsoever to do with the notion of justice, or even legislation, and certainly not the points system.