EDITORIAL: Traffic offences are real crimes with potentially life-changing consequences

Some still believe that road traffic offences are not “real” crimes.

We know that there is a stigma attached to a driving conviction but it seems that judgement only applies if you get caught.

Or, if you are a young man, take drugs or have previous convictions.

Which is all to say, not one of us.

Traffic offences are probably the most common crimes before the District Courts, in particular, speeding and drink driving.

A recent Tipperary Joint Policing Committee report showed a reduction of 14% in driving over the legal alcohol limit.

This came to just 55 incidents between November 2023 and January 2024.

Drug driving was down 53% to just eight incidents in the same period.

This is great news.

But, on the flip side, speeding was up 38% to a whopping 17,798 incidents.

Now, of course, one report does not a pattern make, and these numbers only represent those who get caught.

But these figures relate to the holiday period where lots of people would have been out celebrating and against the backdrop of an increasing amount of checkpoints by An Garda Síochána.

These offences are not committed by master criminals or organised gangs but by regular people.

At that same JPC meeting, members and the media were shown some of the guard’s road safety programme.

We watched real crash footage and interviews with victims and their families describing life-changing injuries or identifying their loved one’s bodies.

But that wasn’t the thing that sticks out the most, instead it was a comment made by the guard giving the presentation that there are people who will be asked to share their stories in the future.

They are not yet ready, he said. But if that’s true, then there must also be people who have not yet crashed, and they don’t have to.

You don’t know what decisions other road users have made for you, but you can make better decisions for you and others.

We know there is a stigma to a conviction or a driving ban.

But stigma is a pretty useless social construct if you can’t see your behaviour as a problem.

And getting caught is not the worst possible outcome.