The severity of driving offences depends on their potential to cause harm, harm public safety, or show disregard for the law.
Some of the worst driving offences include:
Dangerous Driving
Driving in a way that poses a serious risk to the safety of others, such as excessive speeding, aggressive overtaking, or running red lights, is considered one of the most severe offences. It can result in imprisonment, fines, and long disqualifications.
To qualify as dangerous driving (rather than merely careless driving) the driving must “expose people to peril” such that a reasonable person would recognise it as “involving a direct and serious risk of injury to others” (DPP v Quinlan [1962] and DPP v O’ Shea [2017).
"Frequently these men have no
previous convictions and have worked
hard all their lives.
In other words, people like you and me."
Drink or Drug Driving
Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs impairs judgment and reaction times, significantly increasing the risk of accidents.
Penalties can include mandatory disqualifications, fines, and imprisonment.
The length of penalties and disqualification periods are based on the blood alcohol concentration (BAC), as well as previous convictions, if any.
While alcohol will likely fully exit your system at some point the next day, the same cannot be said for drugs.
Most drugs will not fully leave your system until 3-4 days after you have consumed them, and cannabis (by far the most popular recreational drug) will linger in your blood at above legal limits for up 3 weeks after you have consumed it.
Hit-and-Run
Failing to stop after an accident, especially if injuries or fatalities occur, is a serious offence. It is heavily penalized.
While a disqualification is discretionary (i.e. the judge can decide whether to impose it or not), your actions after the event will be crucial in determining what actions they take.
If someone has been injured during the hit-and-run incident, a custodial sentence will be likely.
But as most hit-and-run incidents involve scratches or dents to cars, a judge may decide not to disqualify someone if they think that the circumstances of that case merit it.
Driving Without Insurance
Operating a vehicle without valid insurance leaves victims of accidents unprotected and is treated harshly. These types of offences are increasingly prosecuted by the Gardai as they now possess in-car technology that allows them to scan traffic as it passes.
If a car passes that is not insured the car will be stopped and the driver prosecuted.
This is beginning to happen increasingly to men who have traditionally left the responsibility of getting the household car insurance organised to their wives.
Frequently these men have no previous convictions and have worked hard all their lives.
In other words, people like you and me.
I spoke to one respectable businessman who always left car insurance renewal issues to his wife to fix.
She had fallen seriously ill during the renewal period and this vital responsibility was overlooked.
He was driving for 2 weeks without insurance before being stopped randomly by the Gardai.
He now faces a prosecution for driving without insurance.
Driving While Disqualified
Ignoring a disqualification order undermines the justice system and poses a danger to public safety. It also indicates to a judge that you don’t care about court orders: you’re going to drive anyway.
Every time an uninsured driver has an accident, the compensation that is paid to the injured party comes from a central fund that all insured motorists pay into.
Judges have zero tolerance for people who drive without insurance and will need to hear strong arguments against imposing a jail sentence.
Arguing that you had “no choice” but to drive as you live in a remote area with no bus routes, will not work in court. It won’t work because many people live in remote areas with no bus routes.
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People who argue this “remoteness defence” often say that they had “no other way of getting the kids to school”.
Think about that: you want your lawyer to tell the judge that you were “only” dropping your kids to school when you were stopped.
Only.
Here’s what the judge hears: “they’re driving their innocent kids, in an uninsured car”.
Maybe think that one over…