A leading garda responsible for policing traffic on the M1 motorway between the border and the outskirts of Dublin has said he believes that most Northern motorists seem to be aware that they won't incur penalty points for speeding and as a result take little heed of the likes of fixed speeding cameras.
Currently, motorists without Irish licences cannot incur points. The latest figures from the Department of Transport show that up to June 30th, of the 153,012 drivers who committed offences for which penalty points are incurred, 22,439 could not receive points on their licences.
While not all of these drivers are from the North, Inspector Gerry O'Brien of the Louth-Meath Division, says: "I imagine that Northern drivers are aware that they can't get points. Speeding is a fixed charge for them and while there's a high percentage of payment, for most it's just a nominal fee.
"We've noted that when using fixed cameras in the area, there's a high percentage of non-Irish registered cars, particularly from the North, featuring among the offenders. These images are put on file, but there's nothing that can really be done about it. In reality Garda hands are tied by the legislation currently in place."
"We do co-operate with the PSNI, but it's only based on a system of goodwill and there's no legislation backing it up.
"I've met with my counterpart in the North and we've exchanged information on drivers in the past, but you can't really do it on a large scale at the moment, as you are talking about hundreds of cases."
Insp O'Brien said that recently gardaí have been concentrating on the junction at the end of the motorway in Dundalk, where the speed changes from 70mph to 50mph. "We've noted that the area is particularly dangerous. In one speed detection operation between 11.50 a.m. and 2.15p.m. we noted that of 1,055 vehicles that passed, 262 were exceeding the speed limit and a large number of those were from the North.
"In fairness the traffic from the North varies greatly depending on the weekends and other events, like the football. There's also the fact that drivers with Southern licences are also immune from points when in the North and our colleagues in the PSNI say they find that these motorists are frequent offenders up there."
The Government has said it is currently in negotiations with counterparts in the North on the reciprocation of penalty points for motorists who offend in either jurisdiction.
As to speed detection on the motorway, Insp O'Brien says that the policy in his division is one of high visibility policing. A total of three sergeants and 21 gardaí are on full-time traffic duty in the division, assisted by local stations.
Meanwhile, Insp O'Brien says that a lot of Irish motorists don't seem to know how to properly use the motorway, choosing to sit on the outside lane: "I think it's simply based on the fact that most people lack the practical knowledge that wasn't part of their original training.
"The same problem arises with roundabouts. It's a case of simple ignorance of the procedures and signals that should be used and the positioning on the road that should be adopted."
He was commenting as figures from the RAC showed that in Britain several hundred miles of motorway are being lost due to poor lane discipline.
Researchers conducted a survey of 15,000 vehicles measuring tailgating and lane discipline in July. It's estimated that "outside lane-blockers" are wasting up to one-third of motorway capacity in peak periods, due to poor lane discipline.
Also identified during the survey was the problem of "phantom traffic jams" caused by red light braking.
Often poor lane discipline leads to vehicles tailgating. Any slight incident such as changing lanes, or leaving the motorway, may force a tailgating motorist to hit the brakes hard. This can produce a red light (brake light) domino effect with all the subsequent cars braking hard until they eventually come to a standstill.
In turn this creates a phantom traffic jam, although there is no accident or hold-up other than that caused by excessive braking.
This is particularly common in wet weather where drivers don't keep their distance and are forced to brake whenever visibility changes.
