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Thousands more motorists will lose their licences under plans to give police the power 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 too 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 licences.

More than a million motorists have six or more points on their licences. 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 officer’s 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 that they are more likely to be punished.

Drivers will be able to insist that their case is 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, the 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 judgment 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 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.”

grump!

personnally i despise this idea

it is more income generation, pure and simple

Fines based on opinion of a copper who has targets set for him .... this is not "British Justice"


Also, I thought that it was a principle of British law that going to court should not disadvantage you. Surely the risk of a greater fine and more points is greatly at odds with this?

It's all bollocks. I personally am sure, behind the scenes, there IS a conspiracy to get money back into dwindling coffers.
'Fellas, we're skint, we need revenue to fund *insert most things here* so if we do this, we're laughing.

A bit like the stuff to do with Scotland and pre advance measures to secure their Oil Fields for UK were Scotland to stand alone as a Government...

The truth is out there... you and I just wont be told it.

The biggest worry is something that has already been mentioned, and that is "Opinion"

Now without trying to hark back to the "Good Old Days" one of the things that did work then was that we were professional Traffic Officers who had to be licenced to drive and ride everything, we had to do a 10 week traffic law course, we had to hold our class 1 tickets so that our knowledge and driving/riding was beyond reproach. There is no such thing as a Professional Trafiic Officer anymore, they are simply Policemen and Women who drive fast cars

To prove careless driving, you have to show that the standard of that driving fell below the standfard that would be accepted as a reasonable standard for a reasonably competent driver, and it can include slight lapses of judgement.

The problem is, that since many courses are now cancelled, many Police drivers are no better qualified than the drivers and the laws they have to enforce, so at the end of the day more and more people will contest the ticket go to court for a not guilty which will cost even more money, particularly bearing in mind that even for a fixed penalty, the licence will show points for careless drivingc and this coulld have serious consequences for their insurance.

One policemans perception of poor driving will be anothers version of driving par excellence Leave it to the courts and let the Police prove that someone was driving carelessly!!!!!

The courts and justice system are ignoring Police opinions on things that matter to all of us and are hogtieing them in areas where they are the experts yet give them carte blanche in these money raising areas?

Don't upset your local Bobby, if you still have one.

Our local coppers are amazingly hot young blonde girls, they drive a Focus pandacar and probably make our local crimerate worse than better. People virtually queue up to get nicked by them on a Friday night...


That aside, they wouldnt have a clue about careless driving

Ive never been stopped by them but I do try my hardest.

are they tall?

just wondering if you need to ask them to look down?

I think this is terrible! Not only are there no trained traffic officers any more but the standard of training of the ordinary copper is now incredibly low, those of us who've worked in my office for upwards of 10 years can hardly believe how some of them get taken on, they're practically illiterate and even seem to have very little knowledge of the law - they phone us - civiliand who are trained to input crimes and offences but have no training in the laws incolved - to ask whether they should crime something, or whether they need a 'reported number' - and that's just the intelligent ones!

TBO I'm in favour of anything to get a lot of motorists off the road, the standard of driving in this country is terrible.

Far better though to ban any alcohol drinking when driving.

Not unexpected let's face it, it is just another way to make money from people on bikes and in cars etc..
Agree with everything TC has said, I have always believed we needed more traffic cops and a lot less cameras.
You can well imagine that any overtake on a bike that sounds a bit noisey or is "assessed" to be a bit over sixty, will be a certainty for a Careless Driving ticket from these people. Dare lift a wheel 6 inch off the ground as you start the overtake and I hate to think what you'll get in a few years time if this goes ahead.

Gio wrote:
Far better though to ban any alcohol drinking when driving.

Drink driving is still a major problem, but why doesnt mobile phones when driving carry the same stigma? they both kill.

I dont think the standard of driving is any different than it ever has been, but the feeling of social responsibility.. the feeling of a duty of care.. has declined. Link that to mobiles, lipstick, rechargeable razors and whatever else distracts, and the amount of traffic on the road and you have a problem.
These people.. us... are all capable of passing a driving test. the standard for that hasnt changed. it's the distractions thatve increased with the traffic volume.

With my kids taking driving tests at the moment, I honestly think the test has got harder.

That said, it's hard to square that with the level of competence displayed by a lot of the drivers on the road ..... I fail to see how many of them ever passed that test.

It's very odd.

In principle I'm all behind this, but as usual the infrastructure and ability to pull it off successfully just isn't there.

Ideally I'd like to see just ONE moving traffic offence: Driving (or riding) Inappropriately.

This would cover everything from drunk driving, to failing to signal, to using foglights when the weather's clear, to going too fast (or slow) for the conditions, to having a defective vehicle.

Freindly chats, warnings, points, fines, bans and imprisonment would depend on the level of inappropriateness. Some form of evidence would have be recorded so you could have a chance to dispute it and obviously the Policing officers would need to know PRECISELY what they were on about.

Compulsary driving retests for all motorists every few years would would keep our roads a safer place as well.

I also like the idea of having multi level tests which would limit the power of vehicles available to you and the top speed you'd be allowed to go up to.

For the entry level test: Prove you can control a lower powered vehicle such as a 100bhp car or 33bhp bike safely at speeds of up to say 50mph on open roads. This would allow pretty much everyone access to a basic driving license.

On top of this basic entitlement you could take a suppliment test for driving a higher powered vehicle like a 300bhp car or 100bhp bike up to 80mph on open roads and motorways.

For the top level suppliment: Prove you can control a supercar or 100bhp+ bike safely and you can drive whatever you can afford as fast as you like as long as you're still driving safely (appropriately for the conditions).

If you're caught exceeding your license conditions then you're punished accordingly eg. Could be points or a fine, could be you go down a peg for a year and have to take a retest to go back up again, could be a total ban.