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.
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