Half of all Penalty Point Appeals Successful
It's not a letter any motorist wants to receive – a fixed fine notice telling you that you will have to accept two penalty points on your licence or challenge the notice in court and risk a heavier punishment. The doubles-or-quits approach means that a speeding offence carries two points if you don’t contest it, four points if you take it to court and lose. What are your chances in court? The Irish Independent published details released by the Courts Service last week which show that in almost half of all cases, the motorist gets away with no points on their licence.
13,414 penalty point appeals have been dealt with by the courts since the start of 2007. 6,383 of those cases were quashed. Does that mean that you have a 50/50 chance of getting away with it? Yes and no, say the AA.
Penalty point appeals may be successful for various reasons but in the great majority of cases when a motorist receives a fixed-fine notice the evidence is fairly unambiguous. Hence most of us accept the punishment up front.
If detected speeding by a traffic camera the fine is €80 and 2 points. Most people make the judgement that 2 points is easier to accept. The vast majority of people who have penalty points at all only have only 2; i.e. they had only one incident. This does not affect your car insurance and of course it does not put you off the road. Unless you really are not guilty or there are unusual circumstances, the best advice usually is to put it behind you in the knowledge that the points will expire in three years.
Fines increase by 50pc if not paid within the first 28 days and if they are not paid within 56 days, court proceedings are initiated.
But there are genuine reasons for winding up in court. There are people who never received any notification before court proceedings were commenced, often because of confusion over addresses and vehicle ownership. There are cases of genuine mistakes being made by the system, and no doubt there are also gambling types who reckoned they will roll the dice and hope to get lucky. The RSA describes this as playing ‘high stakes poker’ with your driving licence.
On the one hand all citizens are entitled to due process. If a mistake has been made by the system then no innocent motorist should have to accept a punishment, even if the court route seems scary. On the other hand, we don't need a 'chancer's charter' whereby anyone who is legitimately caught feels that they may as well try it on in court. For years Irish road traffic law has been hampered by legal challenges and there is a cohort of drivers out there whose first instinct is to reach for a lawyer and try to wriggle out of it. It's better for us all to know that the rules apply to everyone.
Insurance companies will start to treat you as higher risk as you accumulate points and that will cost you money as your premium is loaded. With insurance prices rising sharply as it is this can be the last thing that you need. In fairness the Irish system is quite generous in that you can have up to six yellow cards, so to speak, before your total hits 12 and puts you off the road for six months.
There have been 661,000 points issued since penalty points began (in October 2002) and of that about 497,000 points went to people who have two points or less. That does seem to support the view that the penalty point system is working as it should be. Drivers tend to become more cagey the more points that they receive, and to date only 12 individuals have actually been put off the road.
Do you have a view on the penalty points system? Email us at publicaffairs@aaireland.ie
Penalty point earners: For the full list of offences liable for penalty points click here.