Vans / 4 X 4′s and Trailers over 3,500 kg mass must have an Operator License

Regulation (EC) 1071/2009 stipulates that as of December 4th 2011 the vehicles above must have a Standard Operators License, including a Transport Manager

On-the-spot points and fines for careless driving!

Thousands more motorists will lose their licenses under plans to give police the powers to issue penalty points for careless driving without evidence being heard in Court.

 

Police will be much less likely to give verbal warnings and will instead issue fixed-penalty notices for minor offences such as failing to signal, passing to close to a cyclist or not displaying lights at night. Drivers will pay an automatic £60 fine and have three penalty points added to their licenses.

 

More than a million motorists have six or more points on their licenses. Anyone who receives 12 points within three years is banned for six months. In 2006, 26,400 drivers were banned for totting up 12 points.

Road safety groups are concerned that the new power will fuel suspicion among drivers that police are acting unfairly and that fines are being issued to raise revenue. Unlike existing fixed-penalty offences, such as speeding and using a hand-held mobile phone at the wheel, the evidence for careless driving is much less clear-cut and is often a matter of the officers opinion.

 

At present police must take drivers to court if they want to prosecute them for careless driving. This is a time-consuming process involving large amounts of paperwork and officers rarely bother to prosecute, preferring to pull motorists over and give them a warning. The Government believes that allowing police to issue fixed penalties for careless driving will make roads safer because motorists will know they are more likely to be punished.

 

Drivers will be able to insist their case is to be heard in court but most will accept the fixed penalties because the court punishment could be much greater: up to nine points and a maximum fine of £5,000.

A Department for Transport consultation paper says that there is evidence that police are not charging drivers with careless driving because of the heavy burden of paperwork. This would suggest that there are careless drivers who are currently getting away with it, an idea that is supported by the steady downward trend in the prosecution of careless driving. The number of convictions for careless or dangerous driving has fallen by 77 per cent from 125,000 in 1985 to 29,000 in 2006.

 

Previous experience suggests that police are likely to make extensive use of the new fixed penalty. The number of fines for using a hand-held mobile phone at the wheel trebled after it became a fixed-penalty offence in 2003. Robert Gifford, Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: There is a concern this would lead to bad feelings between police and drivers. A careless driving fixed penalty will be a matter of judgement by the officer and drivers may feel they are being picked on.

To move careless driving into the fixed-penalty offence regime suggests a significant change in legal process that should be the subject of a Parliamentary debate. However, on balance we agree in principle with the proposal because it will reduce police paperwork.

 

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents also expressed reservations, while accepting the principle of the fixed-penalty notice. It said that several members of its road safety committee were concerned about the subjectivity in deciding what constitutes careless driving.

 

The Association of Chief Police Officers welcomed the move. A spokesman said: We see it as a way of reducing the time involved in processing cases. We believe strongly in education and, where appropriate, would make use of driver-improvement schemes as an alternative to fines and penalty points.

We’re changing the speed limit, but we won’t tell you what it is!

The speed limit may be cut from 60mph to 50mph on thousands of rural roads without any change to signs, leaving unsuspecting drivers at risk of prosecution.

Ministers are looking at the change for non-built-up single-carriageway roads, which account for more than half the network. The national speed limit sign – a white circle with a black stripe – would mark the beginning of a 50mph limit for cars / vans and motorbikes, rather than 60mph at present and 40mph for lorries. The lower limit would apply automatically unless the local authority could prove that it was safe for the road to remain at 60mph.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said research had shown that the change would save up to 250 lives a year. It also favours a lower limit because it would reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions.
Drivers are three times as likely to die per mile driven on rural roads as on urban roads. There were 1,603 deaths on rural roads in 2007 compared with 1,160 on urban roads. However, road safety and motoring groups said that a lower limit would make little difference to safety unless it was accompanied by greater enforcement and changes to the layout of rural roads, such as improving visibility at junctions.
The change may have no impact on average speed, which DfT surveys show is only 48mph in free-flowing conditions on rural 60mph roads.

Robert Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety said: Drivers are still killing themselves despite driving at less than 50mph. Lowering the speed limit on its own is not going to save many lives. We need engineering measures to help drivers read the road better. There is also a risk that drivers will not realise that the limit has changed because there are no new signs.

An AA survey has found that half of drivers do not understand the national speed limit sign.
Edmund King, president of the AA, said: There are many single-carriageway roads where 60mph is appropriate but local authorities may not bother to make the case for keeping the existing limit. This will lead to frustration and could raise the risk of dangerous overtaking of law-abiding drivers doing 50mph.
Many crashes on rural roads happen not because the speed limit is too high but because reckless young drivers lose control.

The Institute of Advanced Motorists said: A blanket 50mph speed limit will not command respect unless drivers can see a clear link to crash risk. A detailed review which assesses every mile of rural road is needed.

A DfT spokesman said: Any such proposal would have to be based on robust evidence of the impact on casualties, emissions and journey times. It would also need to consider issues of enforcement and public acceptability. If such proposals were ever taken forward, it would mean a redefinition of the national speed limit on the roads in question rather than additional signage.

The Conservatives rejected the idea of a blanket reduction in the speed limit. Theresa Villiers, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said: We believe that a targeted approach is more effective, leaving local authorities to take the key decisions on whether reduced speed limits are the best option … Rather than across-the-board reductions in the speed limit that hit everyone, including the safest and most responsible drivers, we believe that a successful strategy to make our roads safer needs to target problem drivers.

Speed Awareness Poll