Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Please note that it is not permitted to have referral links posted in your signature. Keep these links contained in the appropriate forum. Thank you.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2055940817/signature-rules

Drivers could get fines back after error found in speed law

Options
  • 22-02-2004 9:15pm
    #1
    Victor
    Registered Users Posts: 78,388 ✭✭✭✭


    OK, the first sentence an overstatement, but things like this do occassionally happen.

    http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/2589868?view=Eircomnet
    Drivers could get fines back after error found in speed law
    From:The Irish Independent
    Sunday, 22nd February, 2004
    JIM CUSACK

    THE integrity of the entire penalty points system is in doubt following the discovery of an anomaly in relation to the imposition of speed limits.

    Motorists who received endorsements, penalty points and fines for speeding in urban areas could soon receive their money back and have their licences cleared following the discovery that new speed limits were imposed in south Dublin without proper by-laws.

    The Garda Fines offices, the Department of the Environment's driving licence division and even the courts could face a major headache if the problem is found to be repeated across the country.

    Dozens of staff at the Garda Fines Office in Dublin began reviewing cases last week after it emerged that speed limits in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area had been reduced from 40 miles per hour to 30 without proper authority by the Council.

    The Garda fines office is expecting to post out cheques to motorists who were stopped on up to 10 roads in the Glenageary, Deansgrange and Cabinteely areas of the borough.

    The Department of the Environment will also have to contact drivers whose licences were endorsed with penalty points so they can be cleared.

    This will also mean that any insurance increase suffered as a result of the penalties will have to be removed. Any drivers whose cases went to court could also seek redress.

    If the situation in Dun Laoghaire is repeated throughout the country, it could cause an administrative nightmare for fines offices and the Department of Environment's points offices which have only recently cleared the paper backlog from the imposition of penalty points on over 120,000 drivers for speeding since the system was introduced in October 2002.

    Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown council started reducing speed limits across its entire area borough in 2002. In August last year it introduced new restrictions on a number of main roads and several other roads in the area between the Stillorgan dual carriageway and Dun Laoghaire.

    Signs were put up and the Garda Traffic Branch set up check points using laser guns to detect drivers who they thought were breaking the new 30-mile-per-hour speed limits.

    However, it emerged last week that several of the new limits had not been backed by proper by-laws, which were only put in place by the Council in December.

    The gardai have no option but to return fines in cases where drivers were within the old speed limits as they had not committed an offence. Tracking down the drivers affected is expected to take months.

    Despite the latest hiccup in the system, senior gardai are satisfied that the points system introduced by Minister Seamus Brennan 15 months ago is having an important impact on changing driving attitudes for the better inIreland.

    Injuries, collisions and fines are all down although there was a slight increase in road deaths this month due to a spate of fatal accidents over last weekend.


Advertisement