PROSECUTORS AND police in Dundee may soon be able to make inroads into what a sheriff has dubbed the “Dundee disease”— driving without insurance.

They are to introduce recent legislation which allows procurators fiscal and the police to impose fixed penalty fines of £200 plus six penalty points for driving without insurance, an offence which has escalated across Scotland.

Despite the sheriff’s remarks, Dundee is far from having the worst reputation for, mainly, young men driving without any insurance.

The latest statistics, while three years out of date, place Dundee fifth in the Scottish league table of offenders, behind sheriff courts in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Hamilton, while only slightly ahead of Kirkcaldy and Linlithgow.

However, the number of cases, almost 600 in 2001 and certainly more now, does little to help a Dundee Sheriff Court case list which is straining at the seams.

A Crown Office circular now gives the fiscal service the go-ahead to implement an amendment under the Road Traffic Act which means many first offenders caught without insurance will be subject to a fixed penalty.

Since most offenders are fined £150-£200, Parliament decided to pitch the penalty at the higher figure, while the penalty points tariff stays the same.

Procurator fiscal Betty Bott said the notices would only be issued where the service and the police were satisfied it was a first offence and there was clear evidence there was no insurance. If an offender has other charges also laid against them, such as having no licence or other motoring contraventions, they will not be offered the fixed penalty and the case will go to the sheriff court.

Mrs Bott said the fiscal service in Dundee would monitor the new system and check whether payments were made regularly.

Inspector Gordon Taylor questioned whether the perception of increasing number of uninsured drivers was accurate but said there were numbers of people willing to drive without documentation.

“Driving without insurance is very often linked to other issues of documentation, such has having no licence or excise licence, and we do have a rigorous stop checking procedure of vehicles.”