Drivers with points 'more accident prone'

The 'Midlands' Drivers' Attitude Study' found that 64% of motorists with penalty points on their licence had been involved in a collision compared to 42% of those without any points. For drivers with at least four penalty points the figure rose to 72%.

Professor Steve Stradling of the Transport Research Institute (TRI) jointly led the research on behalf of eight Midlands safety camera partnerships.

He said: "We have been able to highlight the fact that drivers who have been caught by speed cameras were significantly more likely to have had a collision than those who hadn't been caught - a finding which was evident among all groups, independent of age or mileage."

The survey, which involved interviews with 2,500 drivers across the region, also found that only one third of drivers who had been involved in an accident said they drove more carefully afterwards. Another third said a crash had absolutely no effect on their driving.

Other key findings included the fact that a quarter of drivers aged between 25 and 50 said they "enjoyed" driving fast, while three-quarters considered themselves to be "a better driver than most people". Also, 15% of men aged between 35 and 50 had received at least three speeding tickets.

Drug-driving survey

Meanwhile, shocking new figures have suggested that one in five (20%) of young motorists take to the road every day while high on illegal drugs.

The survey undertaken by Max Power magazine revealed that 59% of those questioned had driven after smoking marijuana and 37% after taking cocaine. Almost half (46%) believed that they were unlikely to be caught drug-driving and 44% confessed to regularly drug-driving with passengers in their car.

Drug-driving is a growing problem in the UK with 18% of drivers who died on the roads between 1996 and 2000 found to have been driving with illegal drugs in their system, compared with just 3% for the period 1985 to 1988.

A major road safety campaign in 2005 found that more than one in seven drivers who were stopped by police tested positive for drugs. Young people are now twice as likely to be driven by someone high on drugs as someone who is over the drink-drive limit, according to the RAC Foundation.

John Sootheran, editor of Max Power, said: "Driving under the influence of drugs makes drivers' confidence rocket while their skill and accuracy plummet, making any drug driver a serious hazard to themselves and other road users.

"Catching drug drivers is also extremely difficult - the reality is that police do struggle to enforce the law, and with no approved roadside testing equipment, they have to rely on simple and often unreliable physical assessments."