One-fifth of all penalty points prove pointless

More than one-fifth of all penalty points incurred since the scheme began in October 2002 cannot be applied because the driver either has no licence, will not produce a licence, or holds one issued by a foreign state, it has emerged.

Latest figures released by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) also indicate that such drivers feature very highly in a range of offences, from driving without insurance and dangerous driving to speeding and not wearing a seat belt, and even failing to stop at a stop sign.

According to the most recent data for penalty points issued between October 2002 and October 2007, some 126,483 out of a total of 571,666 offences did not result in penalty points being recorded. And there appears to be a worrying trend of non-observance of the rules of the road among drivers who remain untouched by penalty points.

For example, just one driver with an address in Co Louth has had penalty points recorded for the offence of "driving without insurance". At the other end of the scale, Wexford scored highly with 38 drivers having points awarded against them for "driving without insurance".

But the figures reveal an astonishing 6,458 "no insurance offences" have been ascribed to the category "no driver number" which the RSA said means no Irish licence was produced, and consequently no penalty points could be applied.

Similarly, just one driver from Carlow has had penalty points recorded for the offence of "careless driving", while Cork scored highly with 33 drivers receiving points in this category. Yet, some 1,832 careless driving offences have been ascribed to the category "no driver number".

Again, in relation to the offence of "driving while holding a mobile phone", the average number of offences per driver licensing authority was 633, but the number of offences categorised as "no driver number" was 3,084.

In the category of "driving without a seat belt", there was an average of 1,221 cases of penalty points issued by each of the 29 licensing authorities, while the number ascribed the "no driver number" category, was 9,493.

However, Dublin drivers also fared badly in the survey, outstripping all others for speeding offences. Some 104,746 cases of penalty points for speeding were awarded to motorists from Dublin, while the "no driver number" category recorded just 96,146.

A spokesman for the RSA, Brian Farrell, said the difficulty in applying penalty points to foreign licences was one shared throughout Europe. But he said a feasibility study on the cross-Border imposition of penalty points was due by the end of 2008, while a scheme to recognise foreign driving bans could be ready by next summer.

However, the Fine Gael transport spokesman Fergus O'Dowd, who raised the issue of penalty-point immune drivers in the Dáil this week, said: "it is clearly a big issue. The cases of no insurance were practically all cases where there was no driver number - meaning there was no endorsable licence available, and it is now clear that we need a new strategy to combat this evasion."