When the new rules with regards to tailgating and other such driving offences on Britain’s roads were released last August, you can pretty much bet your bottom dollar that the government expected a change in habits by motorists, which in turn would reduce the number of offenders.
Yet recent figures have revealed that since the introduction of the new rules, which saw the police given new powers to issue on the spot fines and three points to those who offend, more than 6,000 motorists have been punished.
The tough crackdown is good news in the fact that the police are now working harder than ever to ensure the safety of the UK’s roads, but there will still be some alarm, as clearly the regulations are not enough to deter drivers from committing the offences.
For the past eight months, police in the UK have been able to fine or penalise for a number of different dangerous driving offences, including tailgating, failing to give way at junctions, overtaking and pushing into traffic queues, ill-discipline with driving lanes, speeding and wheel spinning, handbrake turns and other careless manoeuvres.
The new police powers were deemed to allow them to deal with such offences in an easier fashion than having to drag offending motorists through the courts, which of course would therefore see the money saved on court fees.
There was plenty of positive publicity in regards to the new way of handling such road offences and in the case of tailgating, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) launched a huge social media campaign to raise awareness of the dangers that it could cause.
Moving forward from the release of these figures, there will no doubt be reviews from the government to determine how they can follow the police power increase up in order to reduce the number of people being caught out for dangerous driving.
Image source(s)
1. Wikipedia; Tony Hisgett; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Police_Service#/media/File:Met_Police_Hyundai_i30_incident_response_vehicle.jpg
