No big jump in awarding penalty points

The computerisation of the penalty points system and the introduction of 31 new offences has had little impact on the number of drivers receiving points for road-traffic infringements.

There have been just over 10 per cent more cases of points being issued per week since the new offences were added, bringing the total number of offences under the system to 35.

This is despite expectations that detection levels would jump sharply after computerisation.

In the first three months of the year, when the system was operated manually and included just four offences, an average of just under 4,100 penalty points were issued by gardaí each week.

The system was computerised on April 3rd, and 31 offences were added to the original four. However, anticipation of a sharp increase from that date in the number of points being issued has failed to materialise.

Just over 4,500 points have been issued per week since the computerisation of the system.

This means the 31 new offences and the computerisation of the system has resulted in an increase in penalty-point offence incidents recorded of just over 400 cases, or around 10 per cent, per week.

News of the much smaller than anticipated increase comes when road deaths continue to rise in the Republic.

In April, when the fully computerised system was rolled out, 38 people lost their lives on the roads. This was the worst total for April since 2000.

The number of road deaths to July 4th was 204, compared with 190 in the same period last year.

The latest data on penalty points was released in a parliamentary question to Fine Gael's spokeswoman on transport Olivia Mitchell.

News of the lower than expected increase in the number of points being issued follows revelations last month that a new survey had found that the impact of penalty points is considered by motorists to be significantly less effective than in 2003 when they were first introduced.

According to an unpublished Millward Brown survey for the National Safety Council (NSC), "new road traffic laws" were considered either "very or fairly" influential in saving lives on the roads by only 72 per cent of people when surveyed in February 2006. This is down more than 22 per cent compared with November 2003.

When 1,000 road-users were asked what road-safety factors they considered "very" influential, the impact of new traffic laws dropped from 74 per cent in November 2003 to just 36 per cent when asked the same question early this year.

The survey also found that the public's perception of the influence of Garda enforcement and NSC safety television advertising on saving lives had also dropped over the same period.