A Road Safety Authority expert has listed the five top reasons for drivers accumulating penalty points. Speeding, mobile phone use and seatbelt non-compliance now carry three penalty points.

Writing in the Irish Independent, the RSA representative says that penalty points, introduced on November 1, 2002, initially only included the offence of speeding but subsequently applied to seatbelt-wearing, insurance and mobile phone usage.

The top five offence categories are as follows:

• Speeding with 413,135 notices in the last three years,
• Mobile phone offences with 82,079 notices issued,
• Seat belt non-compliance with 26,582 notices issued.
• No valid NCT displayed with 19,870 notices issued,
• Driving without reasonable consideration with 15,479 notices issued.

Red lights

Other offences include driving without insurance (13,345 notices), learner drivers driving unaccompanied (13,044) and breaking a red light (11,676).

Most drivers, 402,780 out of 519,658, have three or fewer points but there are 1,460 drivers with 10 points and 1,077 on 11.

A total of 910 are on 12 points and face a six-month disqualification.