Penalty Points: 16 new offences now targetted for New Year

Posted By Cormac Sheridan ~ 30th December 2011

The practice of  issuing of penalty points for driving offences will become more wide-ranging in 2012.

According to Minister Leo Varadkar on RTE today, the government will be bringing in a further sixteen offences into the penalty points regime.

A lot of the driving offences concerned were already in place in law, it just means that they are now handled by the issuing of points on your licence rather than court summonses.

However there could be some other changes as well, such as an increase in fines for both speeding and also for using a mobile phone whilst driving.  Other offences that will be subject to points include:

– Having a faulty light on your vehicle

– Failure to have a proper view through your windscreen e.g. excessive tinting

– Lack of seat belt-wearing

–  Having child in baby seat in the passenger seat of vehicle

I will update you when the new list of penalty point offences is published.  In the meantime, I have embedded the current list from the RSA below.