Majority of penalty point notices issued for speeding, with two-thirds going to men
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The number of penalty point notices dished out to drivers on Irish roads rose 9% last year, with three-quarters of all point notices issued for speeding and men incurring two-thirds of all such notices.
The next common offence was driving while holding a mobile phone, which accounted for 10% of all cases, with a range of other offences making up the remaining 16% of penalty point notices issued in 2021, according to new statistics published on Wednesday by the Central Statistics Office.
Instances of speeding rose 10% last year, while there were sharp rises in offences such as a learner driver unaccompanied by a qualified driver (up 32%), driving with no insurance (up 37%) and dangerous driving reduced to careless driving (up 49%).
The number of drivers caught using a vehicle without an NCT, meanwhile, dropped 9% in 2021, while the number of offences for adults failing to wear a seat belt in a standard vehicle fell 17%.
In all, 216,551 penalty point endorsement notices were issued in 2021. The number for both men (128,690) and for women (64,895) was up 9% on 2020, and there were a further 22,966 instances where the gender of the driver was not recorded.
The increase last year represents a steady increase since a low of 177,092 penalty point endorsement notices issued in 2018.
In Cork in 2021, 25,398 drivers were hit with penalty point endorsement notices, of whom 15,992 were male. It was second highest to Dublin, which had 43,427 notices issued.
By the end of last year, 56,977 drivers in Cork had points on their licence, with more than 40,000 of these having three points. Three penalty points are issued for speeding upon payment of a fine.
By age, it is an even distribution of points notices issued, with 26- to 30-year-olds accounting for 8%, 31- to 35-year-olds accounting for 10% and 36- to 40-year-olds and 41- to 45-year-olds accounting for 12% apiece.
By gender, speeding was the offence recorded in 72.3% of penalty point endorsement notices issued to men in 2021. This rose to 82.2% for women.
New private cars licensed in 2021 increased by 21%https://t.co/rckjuoogcS#CSOIreland #Ireland #IrishTransport #TransportIreland #Transport #PortTraffic #VehicleLicensing #NewVehicle #RoadFreight #Logistics #Business #BusinessStatistics pic.twitter.com/9T9AbcZbFd
— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) November 30, 2022
Elsewhere in the CSO’s latest transport bulletin, the number of new private cars licensed for the first time in Ireland stood at 101,853 which was an increase of 21% compared with the previous year. The number of used cars licensed fell by 13%, however, to 68,042.
Electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles contributed to 16% of all new car sales in 2021 compared to 8% the previous year.
The number of small public service vehicles on the roads continued to fall last year, meanwhile, with just 18,946 of them on the roads. From a high of 16,460 taxis on the roads in 2015, there were just 12,861 in all of Ireland last year.
Of these, the vast majority (7,838) were based in Dublin with just 1,000 for all of Cork.