It’s in the eye of the beholder.
You’ve probably heard that plans are afoot, to give the Police extra powers to issue on the spot fines and points on your licence for careless driving.
Well this proposal has been heavily criticised by the Institute of Advanced Motorists and I have got to say, I am with them 100% on this one.
Now this could be a double edged sword, with Police officers making an on the spot decision, if in their mind, a driver drove carelessly and I don’t know that this can be a good thing, as its open to mistakes and misinterpretation and given that this is a “referee” type role, are officers always going to make the right decisions, or will they simply disallow the goal, leaving drivers with unfair penalties for pretty innocent acts.
The other side of the sword is that will the new powers end up with officers giving fixed penalties and points, for much worse driving offences, such as dangerous driving, rather than do the time consuming paperwork required to take it to court.
So we could have a situation where relatively minor offences or indeed completely innocent drivers, are penalised and given points, whilst people that should definitely end up in court charged with dangerous driving are in fact treated just with penalty points.
For my mind, the opportunity for miss-carriages of justice is here in bucket loads and this just isn’t something that should be progressed.
