Vehicles seized in police campaign

Aug 20 2012

Around 100 vehicles have been seized by police during a campaign to catch unlicensed and uninsured drivers.

A total of 248 alleged driving offences were detected across the country between Tuesday and Thursday last week, 179 of which related to uninsured drivers and 69 were driving licence offences, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos).

Police say they seized 104 vehicles for "consideration of forfeiture" by the courts. Around 10% of the alleged offences were detected using automatic number plate recognition technology.

In the Grampian Police area, a 47-year-old man was stopped on the A96 near Kintore. Police say he was found to have eight driving bans, including five life bans, no motor insurance and that they charged him with drink driving.

In the Lothian and Borders Police area, officers say a group of teenagers had pushed a car into the forecourt of Deer Park Service Station in Livingston, looking to refuel it. They were charged over road traffic offences.

During a joint initiative by Northern Constabulary and Tayside Police, a 28-year-old was caught driving at 120mph on the A9 near Daviot.

In the southside of Glasgow, a 31-year-old man was stopped by Strathclyde Police after apparently taking his father's car without permission. Officers say he made off from a marked police car with no lights on and the passenger-side door wide open.

Officers say they traced the vehicle to the man's home address where he failed a roadside breath test and was arrested for alleged dangerous and careless driving, drink driving, having no insurance and taking a vehicle without consent of the owner.

Chief Superintendent Ralph Noble from Northern Constabulary, the Acpos lead for co-ordinating activity to prevent the illegal use of roads, said: "Once again we have seen during an Acpos campaign that people are prepared to flout the law while driving their vehicles. Drivers and vehicles are licensed and insured for a reason, and to ignore the rules is unacceptable. People may think that they can escape the law but we have shown with this campaign that this is not the case.

"The police and law enforcement partners across Scotland will work together using all of the tools at their disposal to detect law breakers on our roads."