£100 Fines For 'Idiot' Drivers

£100 fines for 'idiot' drivers: After years of speed cameras and penalties for ordinary motorists, ministers switch focus to aggressive boy racers.

* New fixed penalty notices of between £80 and £100 for careless driving rather than going to court

* An end to the right to request blood tests rather than breath tests for drink-driving

* Re-test for banned offenders before regaining licence

* Police station drug-testing and a possible new offence for drivers who drive under the influence of drugs

* The seizure of vehicles belonging to the most dangerous offenders to keep them off the road


Aggressive drivers are to face £100 on-the-spot fines in the biggest shake-up of road safety law for decades.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond will today declare an end to the war on ordinary motorists who make honest mistakes.

But ‘boy racers’ who tailgate, undertake or cut up other motorists, those driving under the influence of drink or drugs and repeat offenders will face tough new penalties.

Tens of thousands who make minor transgressions will be spared points on their licence if they agree to undergo education courses to improve their driving.

Mr Hammond said Labour’s obsession with speed cameras meant motorists caught driving a few miles over the speed limit were currently prosecuted, while ‘idiots’ who endangered lives get off ‘scot-free’.

The Government has scrapped grants for councils to put up new speed cameras, and installations have already slowed down, he said.

Mr Hammond confirmed the Government was also considering raising the speed limit on motorways to 80mph, though he said no assessment had yet been done of the risks and benefits.

He said the Government’s new road safety strategy marked a ‘clear break’ with Labour’s approach since 1997.

‘We want to make a clear distinction between those drivers who are a real danger to road safety – reckless, dangerous drivers – and those who are merely occasionally careless or who make an honest mistake,’ he added.

‘That means much more emphasis on enforcement against those who represent the biggest risk and a big increase in the use of education for those who make minor transgressions.

‘The big problem under the last government was using technology. Speed cameras were installed and speed became the only focus of the road safety agenda. It ceased to be a road safety agenda and became a speed agenda.

'That meant somebody driving at 55mph in a 50mph limit might get prosecuted but the idiot who is weaving in and out of traffic and tail-gating gets off scot-free.’

The number of convictions for the offence of careless driving, Mr Hammond said, fell from 125,000 in 1985 to 28,000 in 2006. Police were increasingly discouraged from pursuing careless driving prosecutions because the courts were ‘clogged up’.
‘So we are going to introduce a fixed penalty for careless driving – something we don’t have at the moment,’ he said. They will be issued by police on the spot, but could also be sent to motorists spotted on roadside cameras. Like speeding fines, the notices will attract three points.

Minor offenders will be invited to avoid points on their licence by going on a driver education course.

‘Serious and repeat offenders are who we want to focus on because they are disproportionately responsible for accidents, deaths and injuries,’ Mr Hammond said.

‘There will be mandatory retraining for offenders before they get their licence back.’
On drink-driving, he said loopholes were allowing offenders to escape justice.

Those who are 40 per cent over the limit are able to demand a blood test but because that has to be carried out by a doctor there is usually a delay.


Mr Hammond said: ‘Alcohol can then clear the body. People are playing that loophole so we are going to close it – no more right to ask for a blood-test.’

There will also be a crackdown on drug-driving with the possibility of a new offence.

Currently, police have to prove both the presence of drugs and that a driver is dangerously impaired – meaning prosecutions are almost non-existent.

Mr Hammond conceded forces that have reduced the numbers of traffic police might have to rethink their priorities in light of the crackdown. ‘Chief constables will decide on how officers are deployed,’ he said.

The moves come as an RAC report reveals that young people are 17 times more likely to be killed on the roads than with a weapon. Road accidents are the biggest killer of young people aged 15 to 24 other than illness it says.



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Source : James Chapman - www.dailymail.co.uk