Patrick McLoughlin (the Transport Secretary) has been quoted as saying driving licence penalty points are to go up from £60 to £90 an increase of 50%. The increase will apply to a number of offences thought to include speeding (SP), careless driving (CD), traffic signal offence (TS) as well as offences for using a mobile device i.e. mobile phone whilst driving.
A new offence will also be created to cover other careless driving offences such as lighting a cigarette or eating at the wheel. A few weeks ago whilst I was driving to work a car coming the other way failed to give way when overtaking a parked vehicle forcing oncoming traffic to brake sharply. All this was bad enough but the guy driving was drink a cup of tea from a china cup- If that doesn't deserve a £90 fine I don't know what does!!
The new offence is also thought to cover other driving offences such as motorway lane hogging (not such a big deal for those us based in Norfolk!) or driving at an inappropriate speed.
All sounds great in theory but I'm not so sure the "new" offence" is in fact "new" at all. A quick Google search brings up this article about an offence from 2005.
Despite the fines increasing 50% it seems as though the points will not be increased from the current level of 3 points. I can't help feeling it might have been more of a deterrent to increase the penalty to 4 points for each offence which as a result would effectively mean 3 strikes and you're out.
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