If people are aware of this, the ‘deterrence’ power of jail has been effective. In other words, the risk of jail helps people to ‘self-police’ while on the roads, without the necessity of having police officers standing on every street corner or sending scores of people to jail.

"If you have a few convictions for road traffic offences in the past then the calculus changes. As far as the courts are concerned, you’re not learning your lesson. So maybe jail is the appropriate sanction here?"

"Judges get a lot of criticism online (some of it deserved) but most of it is undeserved"...

You may escape disqualification the first time. You won't the second time. The third time? You're looking at jail.

A tree surgeon is not a surgeon

An innovative new 'scrappage scheme'

Be careful what you take

Be careful out there...

The eternal question...

"Many people wrongly believe they can start driving again as soon as they reach the halfway point of their ban..."

"Testing blood for alcohol takes a few days. Its a very quick process. But testing blood for drugs "takes weeks if not months" (to quote the Bureau)"

Dangerous Driving FAQ Ireland | Penalties, Reports & Summons Explained What happens if someone reports me for dangerous driving in...

"In one scenario you’re driving at a time and a day when there is nobody around. In the other the reverse is the case. Even if there was nobody around it could still qualify as dangerous driving becasue it might be reasonable to assume that at that time of the day you would expect people to be there"

"But in 95% of hit and run cases, there is no injury caused to anyone else, and jail is highly unlikely, especially for first time offenders"

"The legal limit for benzoylecgonine is 50ngs. And the mean level for it was a whopping 1032.9ng, more than 20 times the legal limit"

After all, as most judges see it, if you’ve been convicted of bad driving before, then you’re clearly not learning your lesson. “So why should I give you another chance?”

"Remember those labels that say, “may cause drowsiness”? You should pay attention to those. They’re there for a reason. If the medication that you take can cause you to become drowsy then you shouldn’t drive

"Judges sit through bad crash cases every week. They’ve seen how fast things go wrong. They’ve seen the injured parties in court. They’ve watched CCTV"

"It’s not necessarily about what happened. It’s about what could have happened. And under Irish law, risk is enough"

"This is the part people find hardest to accept. You didn’t crash. You didn’t kill anyone. You didn’t even bump a wing mirror. Maybe you weren’t even speeding?