Middle lane hogging and tailgating: The bad driving habits that police are cracking down on in Greater Manchester
There's been a 400% increase in fixed penalty notices for driving without due consideration for other road users.
Exclusive figures seen by Hits Radio have revealed there's been a huge increase in the number of drivers being issued with fixed penalty notices for things like tailgating and undertaking on Greater Manchester's roads.
Since last year there's been a 400% rise in the amount of fixed penalty notices (FPN) handed out to motorists driving without reasonable consideration for other road users; that can be anything from middle lane hogging, to leaving your indicator on.
Police were given the powers to deal with these less serious driving offences in 2013 and in the first five years 858 people have been given an on-the-spot penalty. Almost half of those were handed out in the last 12 months.
Sergeant Brian McGill is from Greater Manchester's Road Policing Unit which is cracking down on the bad driving habits: "We've all been sitting in our cars and witnessed another vehicle coming up on the outside lane to squeeze into traffic when we've been waiting. That sort of behaviour falls into driving without reasonable consideration for other road users.
"Lots of people we speak to also seem to think that lane 2 is the safest place to be on the motorway - but if there's nobody in lane 1 then there's no reason to do it. Other drivers tend to get infuriated by that and rather than overtaking correctly in lane 3, they undertake in lane 1 - and they've then committed an offence themselves. Unfortunately, that's the way people vent their frustrations on the road and it can lead to accidents and collisions.
"A lot of the time when we stop drivers - they're baffled that they've been pulled over and they don't realise what they're doing but fortunately our traffic cars have got video capability and we can play our footage back to them and give them the chance to see what we see.
"You do have to really educate a lot of people in terms of what they've done wrong. I'm not sure if that's because the standard of driving has totally dropped or whether it's because some people have been driving for so long that they've become ignorant to the rules of the road - but it's all in the highway code. People just need to read it.
"I definitely think there's a perception that there isn't enough police on the roads and people try to chance their luck, but occasionally those people do get caught out.