Over two and half times as many penalty points were issued to men as to women in Westmeath last year, new figures have revealed.
According to ‘Transport 2007’, released this week by the Central Statistics Office, 1,367 penalty points were issued to female drivers in the county last year, while 3,564 were issued to males.
The Westmeath findings mirror the national trend, with overall figures revealing that 77,542 points were issued to females across the country in 2007, while a total of 249,840 penalty points were issued to males - over three times as many as to women drivers.
For both genders the most common offence by far was speeding, followed by failure of the driver to wear a safety belt and failure to obey traffic lights.
In Westmeath, 1,154 points were received by women for speeding, compared to 2,743 by male drivers. Ninety-six penalty points were received by women in the county for the offence of driving a vehicle while holding a mobile phone, and 229 by men. Meanwhile 48 points were issued to female drivers for not wearing a seat belt, while 278 penalty points went to men for the same offence.
At the other end of the scale, there were no points issued to Westmeath’s female drivers for offences related to overtaking, while the county’s men did not pick up any points for ‘careless driving’ and only one was issued with a point for having no insurance.
A total of 178,718 penalty points were picked up by male drivers nationwide for speeding, while 62,151 points were issued to women for the same offence.
