TW
0
Staff reporter BALEARIC drivers have committed a total of 2'671 serious and very serious offences on the islands' roads during the first two months of the new driving licence points system.

This means that a total of 8'675 points have been lost, the majority of them for driving without a seat belt, being 20 to 30 kilometres per hour over the speed limit, driving while over the alcohol limit and driving while talking on a mobile phone. According to figures released by the Traffic Department, 81 percent of the offences were committed by men (a loss of 2'715 points), the rest being committed by women with a total loss of 496 points.

Of all the offences, 604 were committed by drivers younger than 25 (22.6 percent) and 176 were committed by professional drivers (6.5 percent).
In the Balearics, the most committed offence in the first two months was driving without a seat belt (695 offences, 601 by men and 94 by women), which lost them a total of 2'085 points.

Following this was exceeding the speed limit by 20 to 30 kilometres per hour, with 485 offences (315 committed by men and 170 by women) losing a total of 970 points.

There were 357 offences of driving while over the alcohol limit (309 by men and 48 by women, 3 were professional drivers and 86 were drivers under the age of 25) losing 2'500 points.

The fourth serious offence was driving while using a mobile phone (272, of which 229 were committed by men, 43 by women, 30 were professional drivers and 27 were drivers under the age of 25) which lost a total of 816 points, according to the Traffic Department's figures.

Other offences committed were driving a motorcycle without wearing a crash helmet (147, of which 127 were men and 79 were under 25), losing 441 points for these drivers; exceeding the speed limit by 30 to 40 kilometres per hour (101 men and 43 women); careless driving (64, of which 60 were men and 14 drivers under 25); and reckless driving (43, of which 37 were men and 11 were under 25).

In the case of professional drivers, the majority of offences in the Balearics were for exceeding the speed limit by 20 to 30 kilometres per hour (70 of the 176), followed by driving without a seat belt (31), using a mobile (30) and exceeding the speed limit by 30 to 40 kilometres per hour (14).

Drivers under the age of 25 committed a large part of the offences of exceeding the speed limit by 20 to 30 kilometres per hour (162), driving without a seat belt (104), driving while over the alcohol limit (86), driving a motor bike without a crash helmet (79), and exceeding the speed limit by 30 to 40 kph (30).