Explainer: How some drivers approaching 12 penalty points are avoiding disqualification

A driver who acquires 12 penalty points must be disqualified from driving for six months but some drivers are availing of a legal loophole to avoid that.

The penalty points system for driving offences was introduced in October 2002 with a view to improving driver behaviour and to reduce the numbers who die or suffer serious injury on our roads.

Penalty points are described by the Road Safety Authority as “essentially a formal reprimand” by the gardaí endorsed on a driving licence that shows a driver is guilty of a specific offence. Speeding offences account for a significant portion of penalty points.

Section 2.8 of the Road Traffic Act 2002 provides that, where a person admits or is convicted of a penalty points offence, and an ancillary disqualification from driving order is made in respect of them, then penalty points shall not be endorsed on the affected person’s licence.

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Section 2.8 does not specify any minimum period of disqualification for an ancillary disqualification order and such an order is discretionary, not mandatory. It is up to individual District Court judges to decide whether to grant an ancillary order.

Drivers on seven or nine penalty points who appear before court after failing to pay the fine as set out in a fixed charge notice for an offence such as speeding or driving without reasonable consideration, and who plead guilty or are convicted, face hitting the 12 points for endorsement.

In a small number of cases, solicitors for the relevant driver have applied under section 2.8 for an ancillary disqualification order for a very short period, of one day in at least one case, as a means of circumventing the impact on the relevant drivers reaching 12 points.

Such drivers typically make arguments that accumulating the 12 points means they will be mandatorily disqualified from driving and unable to work and meet other commitments.

Those orders, according to legal sources, have been granted by at least two District Court judges.

The effect of such an order is that, once the period of ancillary disqualification has ended, the driver is allowed to drive immediately because they have avoided the additional penalty points which would have brought them to the 12-point threshold leading to a six-month disqualification.

The loophole, according to barrister David Staunton, an expert on road traffic law, could easily be addressed by the legislature.

“What is necessary is an amendment to the law to provide that an ancillary disqualification order in relation to a penalty point offence could not be less than six months if it is being imposed in lieu of penalty points being endorsed,” he said.