THOUSANDS of careless motorists are to be given the chance to change their bad habits at driving school instead of being fined or losing their licence.
Up to 3000 drivers a year who are charged with careless driving offences in Scotland will be given the chance to improve their behaviour behind the wheel.
However, drivers who fail to attend the course will face prosecution and a fine, penalty points, or losing their licence altogether.
Drivers will have to pay the (pounds) 129 bill for the courses under the self-financing scheme.
The driver schools will be introduced across Scotland from next April following a pilot project in West Lothian from 1998 to 2002.
A survey of 36 of the 101 people who took part in the scheme found their main reason for participation was to avoid court and penalty points. A report said the desire to avoid going to court was stronger than the positive motivation to improve driving skills.
The overwhelming view of respondents was that their driving did improve and they had positive views of the course.
However, none had undertaken any further driver training and most said that risky behaviour still constituted an element of their driving.
Each respondent was asked to say whether they were guilty of any one of a number of potential risky actions in the course of their driving.
They admitted using a mobile phone, driving without a seatbelt, exceeding the speed limit on a 60mph road by 20mph and overtaking another vehicle on the inside lane.
Of the 36 people surveyed, eight had passed their test in the past two years and six had been driving for more than 20 years.
The vast majority of respondents were very regular drivers who drove as commuters and for general social and domestic reasons.
The Scottish Executive announced its intention to set up driver schools last year following the West Lothian pilot project. Similar schemes have operated in England and Wales for the past decade.
Details of the new scheme were confirmed yesterday by Cathy Jamieson, justice minister, and Colin Boyd QC, the lord advocate.
They announced that BSM and RAC, the driving organisations, had won the tender to run the three-year scheme from April 1 next year.
Ms Jamieson said: ''Payment of a fine under the current system does nothing to ensure that drivers are any safer when they get back behind the wheel.
''Participation in the scheme offers a positive alternative to prosecution and sentence.''
Procurators-fiscal will decide whether to offer the course.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article