Penalty points for dropping litter from a car?

Jul 9 2009 by Joanne Douglas

MOTORISTS who drop litter from their cars should be fined and receive points on their licences, a campaign group believes.

As figures show that more than 700,000 bags of litter and collected each year from England’s roads, the Keep Britain Tidy groups is calling for harsher penalties.

They want to make it easier to prosecute the owner of the vehicle unless they provide details of the culprit.

It comes less than a month after Mirfield woman Larissa Wilkinson was cleared by a court after the ‘culprit’ was her 18-month-old niece who dropped a sweet wrapper from her car.

The judge in the case branded it the “most inappropriate set of proceedings” he’d ever ruled over and said bringing it to court was a “fantastic waste of community charge payers’ money”.

But now Keep Britain Tidy want more action.

They have joined forces with Kirklees Council to clamp down on driving litterbugs.

Research shows that nearly a quarter of people – 23% – admit to dropping litter from their vehicles.