Thursday, April 13, 2006

Admitting Drink Driving

The new Road Traffic Bill has a provision that gives a motorist caught drink driving to admit the offense and take an on the spot fine and a 6 month driving ban. If instead they appeal the case to the courts they will face much stricter penalties.

Now on the Eamon Dunphy show this morning Eamon came up with a reason why this wouldn't work. If you are drunk and the cops catch you are you in a fit state to make a decision regarding your legal position. (Available on podcast, check here)

It's insane but you just know people will get out of drink driving convictions by going to court and proving that they were incapable of making decisions so they should not have been convicted. Then they will get off on the original drink driving charge because the correct procedures for bringing a case to trial will not have been followed after they took the on the spot fine.

It all makes me wonder if when a driver is caught drink driving, accepts the on the spot fine and driving ban will they be allowed to drive home? Probably.

2 comments:

Declan said...

Bernie, I removed your comment just because I was a little worried about the last part of the comment and I wasnt able to just edit just that line. I'm sure I over reacted but you know bloggers are lible for the contents of the comments on their blogs. Dont take it personally, I'm just being overly paranoid.

Anonymous said...

>> "I'm just being overly paranoid."

Yes Declan, way too paranoid