Transport secretary Phillip Hammond has promised improved road safety with the introduction of on-the-spot fixed penalty notices for careless driving.

As part of a series of new policies, ministers want to crack down on poor driving and behaviour on the roads, removing judicial intervention. 

The policies are recommended in the Department of Transport's document, Strategic Framework for Road Safety. 

Other new policies include:

• forcing disqualified drivers to take extra training
• improving enforcement of drink driving
• increase fixed penalty for speeding, using hand held mobiles while driving and failing to wear a seat belt
• tightening enforcement against vehicles where it's not possible to identify a driver

The Government's also committed to reducing uninsured and unlicensed driving.  Uninsured drivers injure more than 20,000 people and kill 150 people every year. 

Mr Hammond said: "We need to rebalance road safety enforcement away from a narrow focus on camera-enforced speed policing, to address the wider range of behaviours that create risk on the roads."

The RAC said the ban on using mobile phones is being ignored due to the lack of roadside police and believes the same will happen with the new crackdown on careless driving.

Amanda Glover, head of legal disputes at Access Legal from Shoosmiths, said: "The premise has always been that justice has to be seen to be done and on-the-spot fines and fixed penalties could be seen to be denying road users the opportunity to put their case forward, or perhaps worse, of dumbing-down a charge of careless driving."  

Both the RAC Foundation and the Campaign for Better Transport has criticised the new policy amid concerns that progress to improve road safety could falter.

An RAC Foundation report revealed that every year Britain suffers serious injury crash costs of £0.5 billion on motorways, £1 billion on national trunk roads and £2.5 billion on local A- roads. 

Associate and Motorcycle Personal Injury team leader Simon Richards said: "The Government is promising improved road safety, and if it's proposals are implemented this may be achieved. There are far too many deaths on UK roads and it's imperative that the improvement over the last two years continues."

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