650 fines issued every year on expired driving licenses

Almost 2,300 cases of persons driving without a suitable license were reported since 2011, with an average of 650 fines issued every year.

Illum reports that such statistics may be much higher since these do not include contraventions reported by local wardens.

Illum is informed that in the first four months of this year, the police reported slightly more than 300 cases where drivers were caught without a licence or with an expired one, confirming trends of the past years.  

Last year, police officers reported 612 such cases. In 2012 these cases amounted to almost 680, while in the preceding year 574 reports were filed.

A spokesperson for the Transport Ministry underlined that enforcement officers from Transport Malta ‘may occasionally issue fines’ when they meet such cases.

“But this work is primarily carried out by police officers and local wardens,” the spokesperson said.

In fact, from 2011 till April 2014 Transport Malta issued almost 110 fines, compared to the 2,200 reports filed by police officers in the same period.

In some cases, local courts decided to suspend the driving license of repeated offenders or even hand out a prison term according to the seriousness of the case.

Read more in today’s issue of Illum.