ALMOST A MILLION DRIVERS ON 6 POINTS OR MORE
09 March 2006 - Safe Speed

According to a YouGov poll on behalf of Direct Line (published today) almostone million drivers are now on 6 or more licence points.

With some speeding offences attracting 6 licence points they are just one flash away from a 6 month ban under ''totting up''.

The poll found that 16% of drivers (5.4 million drivers) have points on their driving licences, with 2.2% of drivers on 6 points (750,000 drivers) and 0.48% of drivers (160,000) on 9 licence points.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign (www.safespeed.org.uk) said: ''Drivers frequently write to me complaining about the dangers of driving with 9 licence points. They tell me that every van at the road side becomes a threat and the speedometer becomes an obsession. They live in dread of missing a speed limit sign. This means that they feel forced to concentrate on speed limit compliance at the expense of concentrating on the road ahead. It simply isn''t safe.''

''We''re are rapidly becoming a nation of drivers obsessed, not with safety, but with mere legal compliance. In the dash for speed camera cash we have forgotten that the true goal is safety not legality. While it is extremely important that we do not drive ''too fast'' the speed limit cannot tell us what ''too fast'' is.''

''Road safety is a matter of psychology because crashes only happen when road users make mistakes. Putting drivers under too much pressure is bad psychology that makes crashes more likely. No wonder road deaths have failed to fall in the speed camera era. As far as road death reduction is concerned, we''re now over 1,000 lives per year behind schedule. I am absolutely certain that bad road safety policy, based on speed cameras, is to blame.

www.safespeed.org.uk

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