Survey highlights extent of penalty points fraud

12.00 | 25 February 2015 | | 9 comments

One in 20 UK drivers has accepted responsibility for someone else’s penalty points, and more than 2.9 million motorists currently have penalty points on their licence, according to data published by the comparison website Confused.com.

Confused.com has published the statistics following a survey of 2,000 drivers and an FOI request to the DVLA.

In the survey, 6% of respondents admitted to asking a friend or relative to take penalty points for them, while 5% admitted to having paid someone to take their penalty points for them.

Of those who admit to falsely swapping penalty points, more than half have done so three times or more (59%), leading Confused.com to suggest that “many motorists are adopting a cavalier attitude to the practice”.

The most common reason cited by motorists for asking someone to take their points is to keep a clean licence (48%), while a quarter (25%) admit they asked someone else to take their points because they were facing a driving ban. 11% of those polled said they were unaware that it is illegal to take penalty points for a friend or relative.

The survey also suggests that swapping penalties is more prevalent among younger motorists, with 15% of drivers aged 18-24yrs admitting to asking friends or family to take penalty points, compared to 7% of those aged 35-44yrs.

Gemma Stanbury, head of motor insurance at Confused.com, said: ”Avoiding penalty points means many drivers who are prone to offences such as speeding remain on the roads, where they may pose a risk to others.”

The FOI data provided by DVLA shows there are 2,928,222 motorists who currently have penalty points, out of 38,163,250 full licence holders and 7,500,659 provisional licence holders. 6,801 motorists currently have 12 or more points on their licence.

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    On the other hand Paul, they could make the effort and comply with the speed limits in the first place, like the vast majority do, in which case they would not then be tempted to commit further offences. I take it you’re not familiar with how our speed limits come into being?


    Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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    You might be correct Hugh. On the other hand, laws should really have a sound basis and consent – a speed limit set at a number 85% choose not to exceed has majority consent and is most likely to be obeyed – a number set too low in order to raise revenue or as an anti-driver tool is less likely to have a sound basis or consent. I personally don’t advocate exceeding any speed limit, or off-loading licence points to someone else, but I can see how the situation has arisen as an unintended consequence.


    Paul Biggs, Staffodshire
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    If an individual has contempt for one particular law, is it not surprising that they have contempt for other laws as well? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those who are predisposed to commit traffic offences do not think twice about perverting the course of justice.


    Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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    An automated mass prosecution system for revenue raising purposes is exactly what it is – hence it relies on drivers arriving home safely in order to pay the fine (or be diverted from the justice system onto a for profit PLC speed awareness course). The situation has arisen because, in the good old days of proper policing by Trafpol, they would stop the vehicle and identify the driver. Trafpol also had the discretion to concentrate prosecutions on the worst offenders – discretion that speed cameras enforcing lowered limits don’t have. People whose livelihoods depend on them driving many thousands of miles up and down the country, often in unfamiliar areas where today’s speed limits often don’t match the road layout are most at risk. A problem with handing out so many speeding points to a large section of the driving public is that the stigma is lost and it becomes a socially acceptable norm. The next inevitable step is to offload points to family members or friends to avoid the potential loss of licence and livelihood. That said, the courts are often sympathetic to this – hence the yearly ‘shock-horror’ press story about the number of drivers still allowed to drive with 12 points or more. The bottom line here is that a system is needed that recognises the fact that the only dangerous speed is the one that is ‘too fast’ for the prevailing circumstances and that prosecuting safe driving serves no road safety purpose.


    Paul Biggs, Staffodshire
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    You’re right Nick but, if we think the public swap penalty points simply because they are dishonest, then we live in a bleak society and I think it’s not that simple. There are many factors we might naturally believe are insignificant such as the placebo effect, the effect of advertising, peer-pressure, selection bias (RTM) etc yet, when accurately evaluated, these can turn out to be dominant effects.

    The Milgram experiment showed the power of peer-pressure suggesting that if we live in a society where honesty and tolerance are the perceived “norms”, then that is how we (the citizens) tend to behave. The opposite may also be true and the seemingly constant stream of scandals in the media may suggest that dishonesty and intolerance are now the perceived “norms”. This may not be the reason people swap penalty points but it may motivate people to do so and provide easy justification for such action.


    Dave Finney, Slough
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    How about doing some scientific trials on some of the things you say Dave and see if they stand up to scrutiny?

    ‘Mass prosecution system’ is an unfortunate phrase and has distasteful connotations.


    Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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    Personally I’m quite heartened that only about 7% (by my calculation) of licence holders have penalty points. To me this suggests that the law and its enforcement are quite moderate and not at all the rapacious ogre sometimes portrayed. Also, regardless of who actually takes the points, many people are clearly under some pressure to maintain a clean licence which suggests employers and others taking the issue seriously.

    We should not be surprised that serial offenders who are at the point of losing their licence would resort to illegal methods, nor that those who had accepted money for this favour might feign ignorance of the law. I can only suggest much stronger penalties particularly for identified point-takers as a means of redressing the situation.


    Tim Philpot, Wolverhampton
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    Dave
    Again, I’m surprised by your post below. Are you suggesting that people are swapping penalty points because of something the authorities are doing? Seems a bizarre suggestion to me. I’d have thought they are doing it to avoid losing their licence with all the inconvenience that entails – simple as that in my view.


    Nick Rawlings, editor, Road Safety News
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    While the scale of illegality may initially seem shocking, should we really be surprised? When the authorities enact systems to prosecute the public in their millions, and the authorities themselves are embroiled in moral and criminal scandals, should we perhaps not expect that the public would follow the authorities lead by engaging in dishonest behaviour? Add to this that the mass prosecution system has not been proved to actually improve road safety and we have a potentially unworkable system where the authorities are dishonest with the public, but they’ve made it illegal for the public to be dishonest back to the authorities.

    If mass prosecution systems were to be based upon scientific trials of the automated enforcement devices, then the authorities could at least demonstrate the system is justified.


    Dave Finney, Slough
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