KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
In August, the UK Government announced major plans to overhaul driving laws to improve road safety and reduce deaths on the UK’s roads. In this month’s edition we have a look at those proposals and what they could mean for professional drivers. It is worth noting that no dates have been released as to when these laws will be implemented.
Not wearing a seatbelt to carry penalty points
Currently, failing to wear a seat belt carries a fine only. It is usually dealt with by way of a fixed penalty of £100 (or higher at court).
The proposals suggest making this offence endorsable, meaning not wearing a seatbelt would carry penalty points as well as a fine.
It is suggested that fines alone are not stopping repeat offenders. The Department for Transport recently released figures showing that around one third of deaths on UK roads involved either the driver or a passenger not wearing a seat belt, and a significant number of those had previously received fines for that exact offence. And so the idea behind the increase is to deter drivers continuously failing to wear a seatbelt and drive down fatalities.
As PHTM readers will no doubt be aware, there are seatbelt exemptions for taxi and PH drivers. Looking at the initial proposals, there is no suggestion that these exemptions are going to be affected by the changes.
There is also no clear guidance whether this will simply be for drivers or for passengers as well. It will be interesting to see exactly what stance the law takes.
Lowering the drink drive limit
The next major proposal is to reduce the drink drive limit down from 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath to 22.
This will bring it in line with Scotland, which made the reduction some years ago.
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We always say at Patterson Law that you should never count units before driving – it’s safest not to drive if you’ve had even one drink.
It's incredibly difficult to guess the level of alcohol in your body after even a couple of drinks, as it depends on your height, weight, gender, what you've had to eat, and any medication taken. But, even with that in mind, lowering the drink drive limit to 22 could mean even one glass of wine or a pint of lager could see a person exceed the limit.
The idea of the reduction is obvious - just like with seatbelt offences it’s designed to deter drivers from driving if they’ve had any alcohol whatsoever – and therefore make the roads safer.
Mandatory eye tests for over 70s
The proposal that has caused the most controversy, and the one that grabbed the most headlines, is the proposed mandatory eye tests for over 70s.
Current DVLA guidelines state that once somebody has a driving licence, as long as that licence is renewed every few years a person can drive. Should the driver suffer a medical condition which may affect their ability to drive e.g. a deterioration in eyesight - either the driver or another person such as a doctor, optician or police officer, must report that to the DVLA. The DVLA would then investigate and decide whether to revoke that person's licence on medical grounds.
One of the major concerns of the government is that quite simply, people are not reporting when their eyesight gets worse. Nobody wants to voluntarily give up their driving licence, and so drivers may tend to stumble on with bad eyesight. And a lot of the time that never gets picked up unless the person visits the doctors or the opticians.
And so this is a major shift in law, as it would require drivers over 70 to pass an eye test every three years to renew their licence. And if they don’t pass an eye test their licence would not be renewed.
The proposals don’t necessarily make any plans to alter any other medical condition, all of those will still require self-reporting - this is a shift just for eyesight tests, and specifically for over 70s.
SEPTEMBER 2025 PHTM
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