Gardai in Dublin are very rarely pursuing drivers under the new law that created a specific offence of “dangerously overtaking a cyclist”, new figures have revealed.
The law was introduced 12 months ago and was aimed at
punishing drivers who close pass cyclists.
However, new figures released by the Garda show fixed
charge notices were issued only four times in the first 12 months the new law
has been in place.
This was despite an admission by the Garda they were
receiving complaints daily from cyclists about close passes in the county.
At a recent Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Joint Police Committee
hearing a question to Garda management asked how often action had been taken
against close pass drivers since the new law was introduced 12 months ago.
The response stated that in the Dublin Metropolitan East
Garda division no drivers had been sanctioned with a fixed charge notice.
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Furthermore, in all of the Garda divisions in Dublin
combined fixed charge notices for dangerously overtaking a cyclist had been
issued just four times over the past year.
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The response from gardai was a confused one as it clearly
completely misunderstood the offence and how it operates.
“The offence of dangerously overtaking of cyclists was
introduced in November 2019,” the Garda reply to the question said.
“Regrettably it is a particularly difficult offence to
prove in court as An Garda Siochana have no way of measuring the distance
between a cyclist and an overtaking vehicle at the time of the alleged offence
being committed.”
However, no such measurement is required in the cases and
they also do not go to court - as they are dealt with by way of a fixed charge
notice instead; a fine and penalty points.
When the new offence was introduced last year it was an
alternative to the initial proposal based on a 1.5m or 1m safe passing
distance.
The Government was advised creating such an offence would
be unworkable because it would be impossible to accurately measure the distance
between a vehicle and cyclist during an overtaking move.
Because of that difficulty it was decided to introduce a
more general new offence, of dangerously overtaking a cyclist, with no
requirement for any measurement between cyclist and vehicle.
However, the reply from the Garda at the recent joint
policing committee was based on wrong information in that it assumed a specific
measurement between cyclist and vehicle had to be used and that the cases went
to court.
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