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news
Car wheel at speed copyright Simon MacMichael.jpgCalls for tougher action against people who drive while banned
A Freedom of Information (FoI) request has found that nearly 10,000 people annually have been convicted of driving while disqualified over the past four years, leading to calls for more resources to be devoted to roads policing, and for stronger action to be taken against those who get behind the steering wheel without a valid driving licence.
Sky News reports that the FoI request submitted to the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) by the Press Association discovered that 37,500 people were convicted of driving while banned over the past four years – with one person caught doing so no fewer than 20 times.
In all, around 8,000 of those caught – nearly one in four – were repeat offenders, having committed the offence more than once.
Edmund King, president of the motoring organisation the AA, urged for more resources to be given to traffic policing, an area in which budgets have been slashed over the past decade or so.
He said that putting more traffic police on the roads would be a clear signal to law-breaking drivers that they would be targeted, and “increase the perception they are more likely to be caught.”
King added that the fall in the number of traffic police officers over the past decade “needs to be reversed to keep our roads safe.”
The article also quoted senior Metropolitan Police Service officer Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Cox, who is the national lead for fatal road crashes at the National Police Chiefs’ Council and also regularly raises funds for the charity RoadPeace.
He took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to share the full text of the quote he had supplied.
My quote in full:-
“Disqualified drivers have already committed road crimes, endangering safety in a manner sufficient to lose their licence. Those individuals who continue to drive whilst disqualified brazenly ignore the punishment handed down to them, and in doing so risk the…— Andy Cox (@AndyCoxDCS) December 29, 2023
“Disqualified drivers have already committed road crimes, endangering safety in a manner sufficient to lose their licence,” DCS Cox wrote.
“Those individuals who continue to drive whilst disqualified brazenly ignore the punishment handed down to them, and in doing so risk the safety of themselves and others.
“These selfish lawbreaking actions can have fatal consequences, needlessly cutting lives short and causing lifelong trauma for bereaved families.
“The public understandably expects these serious offences to be recognised as such when habitual disqualified drivers are brought to justice.
“Via deterrence we can reduce danger on our roads and ultimately save lives,” he added.
Lifetime bans from driving are extremely rare, even in the most shocking cases.
One that we reported on here on road.cc was handed down in 2010 after lorry driver Dennis Putz was convicted of causing the death by dangerous driving of cyclist Catriona Patel near the Oval cricket ground in south London.
> London Cycling Campaign asks “Why was Dennis Putz allowed to kill?”
Puts, who was still intoxicated after a drinking session the previous evening, had been using a handheld mobile phone at the time of the fatal crash.
He had previously been convicted twice of driving-related offences, including one in which he faced 16 counts of driving without a licence.
During the trial, it emerged that Putz had previously been disqualified from driving 20 times and also had three convictions for drink driving and three convictions for reckless driving.
Following sentencing, London Cycling Campaign highlighted the case in its No More Lethal Lorries campaign, and said that Putz’s employers, Thames Materials Ltd, “failed in their responsibility to protect the public” by employing
“We’ve been making the case for a long time that companies have a duty to ensure their drivers are competent and capable of doing their work in a way that doesn't endanger the public,” LCC said.
“This was a crash waiting to happen because the regulations are too lax and they're not properly enforced.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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29 comments
And these are the people they catch! I think this evidence tells more about the UKs 'unhealthy' relationship with the car in that, even after breaking the law sufficiently to lose their licence, some people think it's their human right to carry on driving. It extrapolates into people holding a licence in that they can't see the issue if they speed, use a mobile phone, drive badly etc etc; they need to get around (in their car), so what's the problem.
What was the the average fine/sentence for these 10,000 repeat offenders?
Why didnt the FOI request find out whether there is actually any deterent to ignoring a driving ban?
The numbers suggest there is no deterent.
I quite like the idea of disqualified drivers getting an electronic tag for the duration.
Presumably as a way of suggesting that society takes this seriously, or as a reminder? Might have some use perhaps?
For many of those who currently ignore bans this won't do anything though.
Time to treat driving while banned as "Contempt of Court"
Just turn the ban into an automatic custodial sentence if the same duration of caught driving.
Something like this would seem to be needed (until the end of motornormativity...).
However ... we would probably need Dr. Who to organise the rapid building of new prisons starting say 1990 to cope with numbers. Although that's limited as others have pointed out since our systems only seem to act if a banned driver does something extremely stupid in front of actual road police...
We have 15,000 people on remand awaiting court in our prisons - that is getting on for 20%.
The Govt knew this 2 years ago, and chose to do nothing.
Reduce that backlog by 50-70% and the problem would go away.
"Edmund King, president of the motoring organisation the AA, urged for more resources to be given to traffic policing, an area in which budgets have been slashed over the past decade or so."
Just like everything else of benefit to society (the plebs) road policing has been cut, cut again, and again. Under this government, if it doesn't benefit the rich, it gets cut.
The police have an all time record number of officers - it's up to Chief Constanlss to determine the priorities and then align resources to those.
Having said that, considerable Police time is spent hanging round hospitals with "mental health" call outs - something that's now changing because the Chief Constables are refusing to do it anymore and demanding the NHS does it - the latter's FTE number is up more than 200,000 in 4 years.
Since 2010 the number of police officers in England and Wales has risen by only 1.8% whilst the population has risen 8.5%, so in terms of officers per capita numbers have fallen. Sixteen of forty-three police forces now have fewer officers than they had in 2010. Additionally the number of PCSOs has fallen by over 8,000 and Special Constables by over 11,000, so in terms of overall officer numbers (all types) available there are fewer. The government makes much of its having recruited 20,000 new officers since 2019, but they cut nearly 21,000 officers between 2010 and 2018. In addition police funding from government has fallen by 30% since 2010; local government has been forced to pick up some of the slack but police forces are still receiving, in real terms, 19% less than they did in 2010, so the ability to obtain the resources they need, particularly in a capital-intensive area like traffic policing (specialist cars, expensive detection equipment etc) is greatly diminished. As icing on top of this particular shitcake, civilian support staff have been cut by over 20,000 since 2010 as well, severely diminishing the ability of the police to process and investigate offenders - I've been told personally by a senior officer at the Met's traffic unit that they simply do not have the staff to process all the allegations of illegal driving they receive.
Just a few things to consider before taking the government's proud claim of record numbers of officers at face value. Now, about those fifty new hospitals...
Thanks for saving me having to look that up.
Or this apparently non-existent vehicle seen on last Christmas Day, which the police also did nothing about
Impound a suspended driver's vehicle for the duration of their ban (at their expense). Put a chip in the driving licence that has to be tapped at the pump before any fuel is dispensed, shouldn't be too difficult to reprogram the extant at-pump card readers? Then fuel access could simply be switched off for suspended drivers. Of course it wouldn't stop everyone but it might stop a fair number. In tandem also make it an offence to facilitate a suspended driver getting behind the wheel by helping them obtain fuel, lending them a vehicle etc. In Canada it's the responsibility of a vehicle owner to check that any person who borrows their vehicle has a valid licence and insurance; if someobody without a licence or on a suspended licence is found driving your vehicle then you get a heavy punishment (including points) as well as the direct culprit. Good idea.
Sorry, I don't see the point of trying to shift the responsibility of law enforcement away from the police. Adding chips to licences and then adding chip readers etc. to all the petrol pumps wouldn't really achieve anything as someone could just borrow a licence (e.g. from their gran) if they want to go and fill up. Yes, that could be made an offence, but I can't see that police would be interested in enforcing that as you could only really catch people at the moment they were buying fuel.
The answer is a bigger police presence on the roads with them stopping drivers and checking their credentials if they see any speeding or unusual driving. This would also help with preventing other driving offences and I think would improve road safety.
Sorry, I don't see the point of trying to shift the responsibility of law enforcement away from the police...The answer is a bigger police presence on the roads with them stopping drivers and checking their credentials if they see any speeding or unusual driving
I do...because none of the latter is going to happen. There is now the burden of generations of UK police officers (not all of whom resemble Couzens or Carrick) who believe that cyclists are troublemakers and that anyone who helps keep them off the roads is doing society a favour. The entrenched belief of the police and the courts that 'I ain't gonna take away a man's wheels' (I think there's something like that in the cafe at the beginning of Terminator II, when Arnie is stealing the local Bad Boy's Harley) is the root of the refusal to take driving without a licence, MOT or insurance as a 'real' offence. If they refuse to take action over easily traceable hyper-illicit 'outside the pub' vehicles like this, what are the chances of them actually enforcing other road traffic legislation? (except in the cases where they really don't like the offender, because he wastes police time by reporting offences, for instance)
It could easily happen, but would require better funding of traffic police and retraining or removing any officers that have a huge motornormativity bias.
However, that's not going to happen under the Tories, especially after Sunak has declared that they're the party of the law-breaking motorists.
We already have a number of restrictions on purchasing to promote law enforcement, for example age restrictions on buying alcohol, knives etc. Yes someone could borrow a licence but it would doubtless hamper some people. You could also make it impossible for a DQ driver to use their bank cards to buy fuel, adding a further hurdle for them to get round. It could be made an offence akin to not naming the driver to refuse to disclose how you fuelled your car if caught driving whilst DQ. If you wanted to make it really effective iris, fingerprint or voice recognition could be incorporated. Yes it would be great if the idea was rendered unnecessary by the deployment of 20,000 extra traffic officers, but that's not likely to happen.
I can't see that fuel companies are interested in stopping disqualified drivers from purchasing petrol and I doubt that your ideas are likely to happen. It's different to age restrictions as a disqualified driver looks identical to a licensed driver. There's also the issue that the person refusing to sell fuel wouldn't be interested in detaining the driver and to be honest, most fuel station attendants are low paid and would thus be likely to be bribed.
My point is that 20,000 extra traffic officers would help the disqualified driver issue as well as many other driving offences whilst also making drivers believe that they might actually be caught. It wouldn't require retrofitting equipment or forcing companies to change their business - it just requires the political will to do so.
Not sure that's a reason not to impose restrictions: I don't suppose retailers are that interested in stopping underage drinkers but they do because the law mandates that they'd be in trouble if they don't. I wouldn't suggest that attendants be responsible for detaining anybody, the process would be completely automated so no opportunity for bribery would arise, if the driver couldn't prove they are legitimately allowed on the road they wouldn't be able to pump fuel, simple as that.
20,000 new police officers would cost around £1BN a year minimum just to fund salaries, pensions and basic equipment, let alone training and the vehicles needed for traffic policing, if we get a government willing to invest that, great, until then perhaps more left-field solutions like mine are required.
I do think more road police would help, but the issue is still if caught driving whilst banned, it simply extends the ban and the points total. Like this guy
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0xy9g1j1vvo
Amen. Needs a combination of things as usual:
a) a reasonable chance of getting caught. Probably needs more police, expensive unfortunately. ANPR doesn't seem to do enough (by law IIRC in Scotland )
b) penalties which actually deter or physically stop you driving. Ultimately prison - also a problem here because expense / numbers of potential inmates!
c) ultimately society giving more of a monkey's about safe driving. That social pressure not to do wrong things and the pool of potential witnesses ("grasses") is what keeps most in line. Currently lots must view this as "not real crime". Or rather it's seen as not increasing risk to everyone ("everyone does it / it was just a moment of inattention") and / or unreasonable restriction on a person's life ("I *had to* drive..." remember).
Just make it illegal to own a car without a license. You can't own a gun without a license. If a DQ driver is caught driving someone else's car impound the car as evidence and then charge the owner. They can't get it back until they pay a hefty fine.
All great, but in reality how is that going to be monitored? There are an estimated 800,000 drivers out there driving without a licence or on suspended licences and the police are catching 8,000 a year, presumably only when they do something wrong in front of a traffic officer and have their details checked. Unless and until we have a government prepared to invest the billions required in officers and equipment to deal with road crime properly (latest estimate, 12th of never) I think we should investigate ways we can prevent these drivers getting out on the road, rather than waiting for them to do so and then hoping they show themselves up in front of an officer. 1% of offenders being caught certainly shows this "system" isn't working.
Never mind tougher sentences - breaking driving bans needs sorting.
Given that "deprivation of 'right' to drive" is seen by society and indeed the courts as a "nuclear" option - almost a cruel and unusual punishment - rest assured that those banned really, really shouldn't be driving.
Yet we have the equivalent of: "I sentence you to two years in prison as you are a proven danger to the public! Only - when I say prison, I mean your house. And actually, just don't go out of your house during the day. And we won't tag you or anything, it's just your responsibility to be in. But if you break the order we'll be forced to ask you to go back home again."
Crush their car would be a start.
Technology in terms of tagging and they have to justify every trip (checked randomly)
Eventually everyone needs to have a licence that interacts with the car before a journey can be made.
seems reasonable for a first offence, second offence should be amputation of legs and further offences should continue this pattern!
Who is going to stop them from driving?
The police? don't make me laugh.
So how were those 10,000 people convicted? And note that's convicted, so the figure arrested and/or investigated will be considerably higher I imagine. I still have no doubt in my mind however that this is just the tip of the iceberg of the actual number of people committing the offence.
Every time I take my dog to the park, the ducks try to bite him. That’s what I get for buying a pure bread dog.
I tried.