POLICE IN Tayside have been heartened by spot checks on more than 100 vehicles which found no major breaches of road safety law.

Scotland’s eight police forces took part in Operation V79, a day-long, UK-wide operation aimed at tackling road safety issues and any associated criminal behaviour.

A total of 6000 vehicles were stopped across the UK, with nearly 900 stopped and checked in Scotland.

In Tayside, officers stopped 112 light goods vehicles, and the man in charge of road policing in Tayside was happy with the results.

Chief Inspector Sandy Bowman said officers had uncovered only a few minor breaches of the law.

“We had 112 vehicles stopped and there were no traffic offences of major concern,” he said.

“All the information we gathered will now get fed into the national database and help build up a strategy on tackling road offences.”

Among the traffic offences police in Tayside recorded were a van with an out-of-date MOT.

However, Chief Inspector Bowman said co-ordinated police actions like Operation V79 demonstrated that people behind the wheel illegally would be caught out sooner rather than later.

“People might think if they’re just driving along and not attracting any attention then they can flout road traffic laws, but this sends out the message that they can be caught in a number of ways,” he said.

Evidence from previous random spot checks in 2006 and 2004 showed that as many as 28% of vehicles on Scotland’s roads were being used illegally.

However, only three vehicles were seized in Scotland during this year’s campaign.

Assistant Chief Constable Derek Penman, of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, said, “This operation is an excellent example of intelligence-led policing to reduce the level of non-compliance with basic law, which is there to protect us all.

“Unfortunately, this type of operation inevitably leads to many law-abiding motorists being stopped,” the assistant chief constable added.