Points for speeding or £100 for road safety course?

Drivers who get caught speeding by more than 10mph over the limit are to be given the choice of three points and a £60 fine - or no points and £100 to attend a 'speed awareness' course.

According to the details of the plan, motorists will have to be going at 10% plus 9mph over the limit before they receive an automatic fine - eg, 42mph in a 30mph zone. Repeat offenders are excluded. If you don't take the course at the first opportunity, you won't be able to take one if you get convicted again in the future.

A third of the money would go to councils, and police chiefs believe it could raise enough money to pay for a lot of the speed cameras that are being turned off due to cuts in funding. That could start happening as early as April this year.

Police forces in the Thames Valley, Cambridgeshire, Northumbria, Devon and Cornwall, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Dorset, Essex, Avon and Somerset and Norfolk have all backed the proposals.