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| Statistical Bulletin CrJ/1999/2: Motor Vehicle Offences in Scotland 1997 |
| 7. Offences proceeded against in Court by Result (Table 8, Table 9, Table 10) |
| 7.1 For 87 per cent of offences proceeded against in 1997, the charge was proved or accepted. A fine was the most common penalty: 81 per cent of offences proved or accepted resulted in a fine, 13 per cent resulted in an admonition and 3 per cent led to a sentence of imprisonment or detention in a young offenders institution. |
| 7.2 While 3 per cent of all motor vehicle offences with a charge proved or accepted in 1997 resulted in a custodial sentence, the corresponding proportion for offences of driving while disqualified was 40 per cent, 21 per cent for dangerous driving offences and just over 3 per cent for drunk driving offences. |
| 7.3 In relative terms, admonitions were given more frequently for the offences of driving a motor vehicle without a current test certificate (32 per cent), driving licence offences (27 per cent) and failing to stop after an accident (20 per cent). |
| 7.4 In addition to the main penalty imposed, 27 per cent of offences resulted in an outright disqualification or disqualification under the ‘totting up’ procedure (this is a procedure by which drivers who obtain 12 or more penalty points for offences committed within a three year period are disqualified from driving). A further 37 per cent of offences resulted in endorsements of penalty points on the driver’s licence. Forty per cent of disqualifications were for drunk driving and a further 28 per cent were for failing to have third party insurance. This latter category accounted for 29 per cent of all endorsements issued. For speeding offences endorsement is obligatory in all but exceptional circumstances and is generally given with a fine. |
| Fines |
| 7.5 Excluding the small number of cases where no separate figure was available, the average fine given in 1997 for motor vehicle offences which resulted in a fine was £132. Thirty per cent of fines were for £50 or less and 39 per cent were in excess of £100. Unsurprisingly, the heaviest fines were imposed for more serious types of offences: the average fines for dangerous or reckless driving, drunk driving offences and driving while disqualified were £332, £291 and £334 respectively. The total amount of fines imposed by Scottish courts for motor vehicle offences in 1997 was estimated to be £9,132,000. |
Chart 3 Average fine imposed for motor vehicle offences in 1997, by type of offence |
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| Disqualifications |
| 7.6 In 1997, 23,000 motor vehicle offences resulted in the offender being disqualified from driving. For 500 of these offences it was not possible to identify a separate period of disqualification (where the offender was disqualified for more than one offence and an aggregate disqualification period was given by the court). Of the remaining offences for which a separate period of disqualification was identified, 10,400 (46 per cent) resulted in disqualification for more than 12 months, with 1,100 offences leading to disqualification until the offender passed a driving test and 144 to disqualification for life. |
| 7.7 Eighty per cent of disqualifications for over 3 years were imposed for drunk driving or driving while already disqualified. Failure to insure against third party risks accounted for a further 14 per cent of disqualifications in excess of three years. |
| 7.8 For those offences for which a determinate period of disqualification was given, the average period of disqualification in 1997 was 21 months. However, for the offence of driving while disqualified the average period imposed was 41 months. |
Chart 4 Percentage of motor vehicle offences resulting indisqualification in 1997, by type of offence |
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| 8. Police Fixed Penalties for Stationary Vehicle Offences (Table 11, Table 12, Table 13, Table 14) |
| 8.1 To enable the offender to discharge liability for prosecution for stationary vehicle offences such as unlawful parking or failure to display a valid vehicle excise licence (road tax disk), the police and traffic wardens may issue fixed penalty notices. In 1997, a total of 438,700 such notices were issued, a marginal decrease of 1,000 from the 1996 total of 439,700. Parking and waiting offences accounted for 69 per cent of this total and failure to display a valid excise licence for a further 22 per cent. The remainder mainly related to fixed penalty notices for clearway offences issued by Strathclyde Police. |
| 8.2 There were 301,100 notices issued for parking and waiting offences in 1997, 3 per cent fewer than 1996 and 21 per cent less than the number recorded in 1992. The number of notices issued for failing to display a valid excise licence was 96,600 in 1997, 8 per cent more than the number issued in 1996 and 12 per cent more than the figure for 1992. |
| 8.3 In 1997 almost half of all fixed penalty notices were issued by Strathclyde Police and just over a quarter by Lothian & Borders Police. About a third of the notices issued by Central, Fife and Dumfries & Galloway police forces were for vehicle excise licence offences, while in Grampian, 97 per cent of the notices issued were for parking and waiting offences. |
| 8.4 The proportion of cases in 1997 in which the fixed penalty was paid was 64 per cent, an increase of 1 percentage point on the previous year. In 17 per cent of the cases an automatic fine was registered and in 20 per cent of cases no further action was taken. |
| 8.5 In 1997, payment rates for most forces were broadly similar to previous years. As in 1996, Grampian had the highest proportion of penalties paid (73 per cent). In Central, Dumfries & Galloway and Tayside, around a fifth of cases had an automatic fine registered. Fife Police had the highest percentage of cases (28 per cent) where no further action was taken, followed by Northern Constabulary (25 per cent). The relatively high rate in Northern is believed in part to reflect their disproportionately high number of cases in which the driver was subject to diplomatic privilege or was a visitor from abroad. |
Chart 5 Police fixed penalty notices issued for stationary vehicle offences by outcome, 1992-1997 |
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