Six Points for Speeding and Mobile Phone Use

Its already 6 points - you get that halved for being a good boy or girl and not contesting it. Which does make me wonder if they intend on getting rid of the incentive to pay the fine on time?

It's 100% an issue of enforcement. The punishments we have are fine, they just don't get used.

The RSA are (once again) trying to do something that looks good on paper, but in reality achieves little to nothing.

The RSA should be pushing for more traffic corps Gardai, APNR cameras, red-light cameras, and an online dashcam reporting portal. All of which will achieve more, but are 'harder' to do.

Have they ever actually commented on red-light / yellow box cameras?

The tech is so so simple and cameras are cheap. Make it an automatic enforcement and you have huge mitigation against a very dangerous driving behaviour.

The RSA are acting like the Retentive Sappy Arseholes that they are, proposing all sorts of bogus BS sanctions which shouldn't, & hopefully won't be acted on, based on a very questionable premise formed from even more spurious, self serving 'studies'.

Road deaths have ticked up a bit over the past 2 years since covid measures were relaxed (like hello , of course!!) , but are massively down over the long term which is far more significant & far more important imho.

Also the issues behind the accidents & road fatalities we do get are never properly presented in public imho.

Issues such as

• the state of our roads
• the weather
• the increasing number of non nationals & immigrants newly driving on our roads must impact massively on accidents & fatalities.
• Mobile phone distraction must also be a huge one .

And the elephant in the room is:

• drugs & substance abuse. (Both recreational drugs & prescription drugs imho).

Perhaps if the Retentitive Sappy Arseholes concentrated on some of these more significant issues rather than seeking cheap, clickbait pr with issue distracting, knee jerk , kill joy requests, they might actually worth listening to!??

As it is the rsa are better off being left behind.... ;)

Yes, but they're trying to "tackle" (yeah right....) mobile phone use by issuing ill- informed, attention seeking, click bait headlines to increase penalty points to draconian levels like a bunch of RSAs!!!

(Retentive Sappy Arseholes)

killjoy eh?

Yeah I totally agree -what happens when we have draconian punishments and the figures of road deaths etc are still on the rise which they will be- a bit of common sense needs to be applied.

For the average motorist, a 3 penalty point fine imposed for 3 years is likely to influence positively future driving behaviour - well it did me when I got it over 3 years ago - I’m actually happy I got it as it’s kept me focused ever since.

I imagine there’s plenty more like me out there who would adjust their behaviour with a similar penalty- you don’t need to take people off the road or fine them 1000s for one incidence of speed.

It’s just getting ridiculous - more Gardai, more cameras at accidents black spots, better speed limits, average milage sections for particularly dangerous stretches - education in schools -all of these will help into the future but even then there are just some people out there who are always going to drive like lunatics- the other day I was undertaken by a motorcyclist as I was taking a left turn - I could easily have knocked him over- no amount of penalty points increase is going to deter that d1ckhead

Worth noting that if you are stopped for both offences at the same time, you only get 1 set of points. So if you're stopped for speeding and phone use, you'll get two fines but only 1 set of 6 points would be applied.

FWIW I think it's ridiculous.

can you show any evidence of the increased number of non-nationals causing an increase in road deaths?

If anything, they are far more careful.

The horrific crashes this year were in the main caused by bad driving / speeding and the drivers were almost all Irish and local to the areas.

The primary cause is publicised - but on an accident by accident basis. Speed is #1. Alcohol/Drugs #2. Phones/distraction #3.

Condition of the road is not a major reported factor - though when an accident happen you'll always find some locals try and say "bad road" when its obvious it was high speed and bad driving.

But the suggestion of doubling fines and having the same fine whether you are 10km over a 100km limit or 50km over the same limit is crazy and stupid

At the risk of digressing, one of the main issues here is that the Gardai seem oblivious as to the requirements for Ukrainian drivers to still actually have insurance. My wife got hit by an uninsured driver recently, gardai were all over it. Lad I play ball with was hit by an uninsured Ukrainian driver, Gardai on the scene let the lad drive off because he was apparently exempt from having insurance - which is obviously incorrect.

Having being hit by an uninsured driver, and waiting 13 years for it to settle, I'm all for uninsured drivers being crucified if caught. Figuratively speaking (kind of).

can you show any evidence of the increased number of non-nationals causing an increase in road deaths?

If anything, they are far more careful.

Far more careful…have you any evidence of this?…lol. You obviously don't spend much time on the roads.

Apparently exempt?

How does that work?

I'm still driving on a UK license, can I be apparently exempt too?

Was the driver Ukrainian or apparently Ukrainian?

Has the lad you play ball with his details, did the driver pay for any injury out of his own pocket?

This exactly.

Looks like common sense has prevailed.

Micheal Martin sees that 4 speeding fines in 3 years = ban is already pretty harsh.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41409482.html

There's a correlation between speed/force of impact and severity of damages in a collision. Is there any relationship between speed and frequency of collisions?

Then that would imply motorways being the worst offenders for collisions. Is there any evidence that bears this out?

It certainly had all the hallmarks of kite-flying.

In fairness, six points for any speeding offence would be too much, particularly when you consider that before too long, the offence could be driving at as little as 36 km/h on a deserted street in a provincial town in the middle of the night.

There'd be some merit to having a graduated series of how penalty points would apply - e.g. four points for going more than 15km/h above the limit, five points for going more than maybe 25km/h above it, etc.

Would also be in favour of more severe penalties for mobile phone use, because really, there's no excuse for it. But six points for every single speeding offence, no matter how minor, would be just disproportionate.

only an average of 80,000km a year and to date have clocked up in excess of 3million KM. A few years ago I'd think nothing of doing Dublin - Waterford - Cork - Killarney - Limerick and back to Dublin on a day.

They are slower drivers - which some people tend to think means bad drivers. And sometimes they can be ultra slow.

But they do not contribute to road deaths and that is borne out by actual real evidence.

There'd be some merit to having a graduated series of how penalty points would apply - e.g. four points for going more than 15km/h above the limit, five points for going more than maybe 25km/h above it, etc.

I was thinking that last night but more the higher the speed the higher the points.

So If you are doing 36kph in a 30kph zone then two points, 59 in a 50 zone would be 3 points, 90 in a 80kph zone would be 4 points, 110 in a 100kph zone would be 5 points and 140 in a 120 zone would be 6 points any faster than than 141 and in a 120 zone would be an automatic driving ban, something like that and of course of you were doing 120 in a 50 zone then that would be 6 points, 90kph in that zone would be 4 points etc.

That woud put maners on people quick.

Can you elaborate or show even a scant bit of evidence of this? - Or like other posters is it something you've made up and have convinced yourself its true?

You do know that drivers from a huge number of countries can simply swap their "home" license for an Irish license. - All EU member states + EEA states + UK + South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, most of Canada & Switzerland.

Ukrainians may drive here as "license holders" with their Ukrainian license.

as for Ukrainian insurance - again, you can chose to believe Far right scumbags who target anything to spread misinformation for people to believe without question, or you can sit back and think - you've a 40k car and you are going to risk leaving it uninsured in a foreign country that has far too many nutters who spout hatred against any foreign person and amazingly you have managed to get through several countries without showing insurance as well.

Ukraine was and still is a tech hub. They have many well off people who work in tech and the HQ is in Ireland. Many also will drive here and visit relatives now living here - but far right scum will try and tell you otherwise, yet funny, they can NEVER provide any proof.

Was about to point that out myself….but maybe not in as blunt or sarcastic a manner!

In fairness, am sure those suggestions were just off the top of the other poster's head, same as I just typed up mine as examples of how it could operate.

On the suggestion of six points for 120km/h in a 50km/h zone - there'd probably be grounds there for a charge of dangerous driving or similar anyway, and the associated higher penalties that already brings.