Road traffic: new penalties, offences, and procedures?

HM Government is consulting on potential wide-ranging changes to road traffic laws until 11 May 2026.

It is reviewing many offences, powers and procedures, including:

• drink and drug driving
• not wearing a seatbelt
• failure to stop after an accident and report an accident
• unlicensed and uninsured driving
• new penalties for motoring offences and road traffic cases.

Drink and Drug Driving

The consultation asks whether the legal alcohol limit for drink and drive offences should be lowered or remain the same, and whether there should be a different legal alcohol limit for novice drivers.

Whilst lowering the drink and drive limit has been a hot topic for some time, the consultation also looks at other possible additional initiatives:

• persons suspected of committing drink or drug offences have their driving licences suspended until their court appearance, their guilty plea, or until they are bailed by the Police awaiting forensic analysis.
• suspension of driving licences for those who are under investigation for serious driving offences (fatal or serious injury cases).
• whether to bring in new powers for the seizure of vehicles by those arrested for drink and drug driving.

Finally, the consultation asks: ‘In your view, should random breath testing (mirroring the powers in Northern Ireland) be introduced in England and Wales?’ This does not currently exist, and police currently have to have reasonable grounds for believing a driver may be impaired, e.g. because they have received evidence to that effect or have observed driving behaviour or moving road traffic offences that give rise to a suspicion of impaired driving.

Seatbelts

Not wearing a seatbelt is not currently an offence that attracts penalty points. Only a financial penalty (often a fixed penalty) will follow.

One proposal is that drivers receive three penalty points if they fail to wear their own seatbelt, and that this should possibly be extended to passengers who fail to wear seatbelts and/or fail to ensure that children under 14 do so.

The government’s preference is that three penalty points should be imposed on all drivers who fail to wear a seatbelt and/or fail to ensure children are using the correct child restraint.

Accidents: failure to stop and report

The consultation seeks views on increasing the maximum penalty for offences – these currently can bring unlimited fines and/or a maximum of six months’ custody with a licence endorsement in the range of five to ten penalty points (or disqualification for six months instead).

In practice, there is quite a difference in the types of offences, ranging from low-level damage cases to those where drivers deliberately leave the scene to avoid a roadside breath/drugs test or because an injury/death has occurred (hit-and-run cases).

The Department of Transport is considering whether a new offence should be brought in – this would cover situations where there is death or serious injury, and it would reasonably be assumed that the driver to have known that the collision had caused this and they failed to stop and/or report it.

Finally, there is a proposal for a new offence requiring a driver to switch off the vehicle engine if stopped by the Police, to prevent officers being driven at during a roadside stop.

This offence is one of many that is subject to a six-month statutory time limit for prosecution, which can be extended for 18 months if the consultation concludes that this is appropriate. Fail to stop/report are imprisonable offences, and the idea here is that these cases can be more complex to investigate in order to be able to identify a driver, justifying an extended time limit within which to prosecute. This is to avoid drivers escaping prosecution due to the time-bar.

New Penalties (No MOT, no current keeper/number plate offences)

Here, the Department for Transport is proposing the following possible amendments:

• penalty points for driving/being in charge of a vehicle without a current keeper, with possible seizure of such vehicles.
• a new offence of being in charge of a vehicle with an incorrect/altered/false number plate, as well as vehicle seizure.
• penalty points for driving/using a vehicle with no current MOT (this is currently unenforceable, and if there are defects with the vehicle, e.g. tyres/brakes/steering, etc., that would fail an MOT, they are dealt with as offences relating to the vehicle components). As above, vehicles without a current MOT may be seized.
• Introduction of penalty points for driving/using a vehicle with no current vehicle tax (and seizure powers).
• Introduction of penalty points for vehicle insurance false declaration offences or disqualification for the same offence.

Six-month time limit

For certain offences, there is a six-month time limit within which a prosecution charge must be laid before a Magistrates’ Court. It is possible to “play the system” by delaying responses to the Police so the case passes through the six-month time limit, whereupon any prosecution is ‘locked out.’ Accordingly, the proposal is to start the six-month time limit from the point at which the driver gives details to the Police.

Unlicensed driving/uninsured driving

The consultation asks whether current penalties for unlicensed and/or uninsured driving should be increased. These currently carry a maximum fine of £1,000 for unlicensed driving (i.e. not having a driving licence or not driving within the terms of the licence issued), with three to six penalty points (or disqualification if points are not endorsed). It is not currently possible for an unlicensed driver to be imprisoned until they commit an offence of disqualified driving or some other imprisonable offence.

Driving without insurance can result in an unlimited fine, with an endorsement of six to eight penalty points (or disqualification instead). The Government has concerns about whether these penalties are a sufficient deterrent, given that a standard offence is often dealt with by a fixed penalty of £300 and six penalty points.

The consultation

The consultation seeks views on all of these areas, but it is more probable that only some key ones may be actually implemented. Probably, one key initiative may be lowering the drink-driving permitted alcohol level, which has been on the Government’s and road safety groups’ agenda for some time.

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