I would be the first to admit that I dislike the current trend in primary schools to never tell children off, or do anything other than give them gold stars (or similar), but it got me thinking - what if the driving and vehicle licensing authorities took a tip of their book?

Under this exciting new scheme, you would get points on your license for _good_ driving. And at the end of the year you can convert your points into prizes (because what do points mean?) - say 6 months free road tax? By offering incentives for driving _well_ (for which there are currently none), rather than simply punishing people who do badly, primary school theory would say that people will behave better.

Imagine this - squads of unmarked police cars going round and taking down the plates of those who drive well, so they can get points on their license? Or parking wardens who reward good parking? Imagine receiving a letter through the post saying that you’d been “caught” driving well, and here’s 3 points on your license?

Of course - you would still punish those who break the rules, but this time by removing points from their license. Anyone who hits 0 points is banned. (There’d probably have to be some sort of system for retaining “bad” points - you don’t want people racking up good points just so that they can drive down the motorway at 200mph because they have 150 points on their license…..)

mrBen

Footnote: I realise that the DVLA and the points system are not connected per se, but it made for a nice title.