The new law on “text driving” that came into effect in May is unfortunately confusing. It’s a law that is probably intended to set a tone rather than result in significant prosecutions, but road traffic offences do tend to generate a lot of challenges.

I wrote to the Minister for Transport about the regulations and the new one (Paschal Donohue TD) wrote back.

You are quite right about penalties under the regulations. The Road Traffic Acts 1961-2014 contains in section 102 of the 1961 Act, as amended, a ‘general penalty’, which applies to all road traffic offences for which a specific penalty is not set out in the legislation. We had erroneously referred to the general penalty initially, in reference to the texting regulations. However, as you correctly pointed out, section 3(8) of the 2006 Act provides a penalty of a fine on summary conviction not exceeding €2,000. The Department has since clarified this to the media.

Initial media reports, relying on a note from the Department of Transport, said that the penalties included a jail term of up to 12 months. The clarification is welcome, but he did not address the drafting error in the regulations, which I mentioned in April:

The 2014 Regulations do not apply to “a person to whom section 3(1)” of the 2006 Act applies. Section 3(1) provides for the offence of driving while holding a mobile phone. Section 3(2) exempts Gardaí and emergency services personnel on duty from the prohibition, so I assume the 2014 Regulations are in error and intended to refer to section 3(2).