NEW: Careless driving penalty Ireland

Careless Driving Ireland: Penalties, Points & Defences

Careless driving penalty Ireland

You can be disqualified from driving for 2 years even on a first offence for careless driving. But in my 29 years’ experience in the criminal justice system this is unusual.

If you have no previous convictions and face a charge of careless driving most judges are not necessarily inclined to disqualify you from driving if you plead guilty.

"All section 52 of the Road Traffic Act says is that

a person “shall not drive a vehicle in a public place

without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the place”. 

Wonderful, what does that mean?"

That’s obviously dependent on certain factors e.g. that there was no accident involving other people. If there was, if you collided into someone else, all bets are off.

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

They do see the ‘bigger picture’ e.g. rising insurance costs when it comes to renewing your licence if you’ve been convicted of any road traffic offence.

That aside, while a judge can disqualify you if you are convicted of careless driving, the majority will welcome arguments from your lawyer as to why they shouldn’t.

In fact I know more than one judge who feel that the imposition of a conviction for careless driving (which comes with 5 penalty points, the judge has no involvement in penalty points) is a big enough punishment and refuse to impose any fine as a result.

Section 52 careless driving

Careless driving is created by section 52 of the Road Traffic Act 1961.

Unfortunately it doesn’t tell us much about what the offence is made up of.

For instance, when it comes to theft we all know what that means.

Similarly for assault, we all have a good idea of what that means.

Those of us who are old enough will remember getting a ‘clip around the ear’ from an exasperated parent growing up.

Maybe a few.

Careless driving is different.

All section 52 of the Road Traffic Act says is that a person “shall not drive a vehicle in a public place without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the place”. 

Wonderful, what does that mean? What does ‘due care and attention’ mean?

How do you define ‘reasonable consideration for other persons using the place’?

Ambiguous language like this should give you pause.

What is happening here is that the legislature (the parliament which passed this law) gave wide discretion to a judge to define what they think careless driving was given the particular case that they were dealing with at that time.

Careless Driving Road Traffic Act

“Shall not drive a vehicle in a public place without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the place” means everything and nothing.

It lacks precision and certainty in the way that assault, theft or a lot of other offences do.

Anything that is open to interpretation like careless driving means that depending on the judge they may -or may not- view the offence you’ve been charged with as careless driving.

"Most immigration authorities classify

criminal convictions into groups i.e. offences of

‘moral turpitude’ and offences of ‘non-moral turpitude’"

Offences of ‘moral turpitude’ include murder, robbery, fraud, theft drugs, assaults etc. The key ingredient here is “intent”. 

As many types of driving could potentially be classified as careless driving this clearly means that context is very important.

Context in law is perhaps the single biggest factor that will determine whether your driving was, or was not careless, or was possibly even dangerous.   

Why?

If you drive down the main street in your town at 50kph (in a 30kph zone) past a school at 4am on a Sunday morning it will be regarded as speeding, but will unlikely be regarded as careless driving.

But if you drive past that school at 4pm on Monday afternoon, not only would it be regarded as careless driving (due to the number of children leaving school and parents waiting to pick them up) it might be seen as dangerous driving, especially if an accident was narrowly avoided.

Is careless driving a criminal offence in Ireland?

Yes.

A conviction for any offence is a criminal offence.

This comes up a lot in connection with VISA applications and travel abroad. Again context is key.

Most immigration authorities classify criminal convictions into groups i.e. offences of ‘moral turpitude’ and offences of ‘non-moral turpitude’.

Offences of ‘moral turpitude’ include murder, robbery, fraud, theft drugs, assaults etc. The key ingredient here is “intent”. 

"Similarly you cannot ‘ask the judge’ not to

impose the penalty points.

They have nothing to do with points full stop.

Once a conviction is recorded the penalty points

will be applied to your licence by the Department of Transport,

not the court"

You must have intended to commit the offence of robbery to be convicted of it.

The same applies to theft or fraud: you have to have intended to steal or defraud someone. You can’t be convicted of these offences if you never intended to commit them.

Offences of ‘non-moral turpitude’ are different. Intent is often absent here.

These include some public order offences, drink driving, some property offences and minor traffic offences.

These offences lack “evil intent or depraved motive” a factor in determining how offences are classified according to the US Department of State.

Careless driving does not require you to have intended to drive carelessly to be convicted of it. The offence can be proven simply as a result of your driving.

Because of this, it is treated differently as a conviction.

There was no “evil intent”.

So a conviction for careless driving will almost certainly not prevent you from travelling abroad.

Careless driving penalty points

A conviction for careless driving carries 5 penalty points.

There is no way out of it.

In other words there is no way of ‘paying a heavier fine’ to avoid the imposition of 5 penalty points.

I say this because I have often been asked this in the past.

Similarly you cannot ‘ask the judge’ not to impose the penalty points.

They have nothing to do with points full stop.

Once a conviction is recorded the penalty points will be applied to your licence by the Department of Transport, not the court.

And the points are automatic.

Once a conviction for careless driving is recorded 5 points will go on.

While this may be viewed by you as unfortunate or even unfair, remember you could have been disqualified for 2 years, but likely weren’t.