- Penalty to increase from £60 to £100 for a range of existing offences
- Include using phone, speeding, jumping lights and not wearing a seat belt
- Fines for uninsured drivers are set to rise from £200 to £300.
Drivers who hog the middle lane of a motorway face £100 fines and three penalty points.
In a crackdown on anti-social motoring unveiled today, a new fixed penalty offence of careless driving will also target those who cut up other cars, tailgate or block a dual carriageway's outside lane.
Ministers are at the same time increasing from £60 to £100 the fines for a range of existing offences.
These include using a hand-held phone at the wheel, speeding, jumping lights and failing to wear a seat belt. All bar the last also carry three penalty points.
Police officers, guided by the Highway Code, will have to decide who is guilty of hogging the middle lane or tailgating – getting too close to the car in front.They will issue the fines at the roadside. It is likely that only the worst drivers, who misbehave over half a mile or more, will be fined and given penalty points.
Occasional offenders will be given the chance to go on a driving course similar to those offered to speeders.
Edmund King of the AA said middle-lane hogs, tailgaters and mobile phone users were the top three most hated types of driver in a poll of members.
But he said the bureaucratic difficulty and expense of securing convictions would mean only the most serious offenders would be targeted.
"There has to be discretion. If someone is driving for half a mile in the middle lane when the inside lane is clear, then it's a clear case. Under this system it will be easy for a police car to stop you and give you a ticket."
He said using fixed cameras to track tailgaters was technically difficult and had not worked in other countries.
The £100 fines are to be announced in a written statement by road safety minister Stephen Hammond and follow a public consultation exercise last year.
They will apply to motorways, dual carriageways and three-lane highways such as the A3 from south-west London through Surrey and Hampshire, which is notorious for 'middle-lane hoggers'.
Stephen Glaister of the RAC Foundation welcomed the crackdown but insisted tougher fines must be accompanied by tougher enforcement.
"Anti-social behaviour is as big a problem on the roads as it is in wider society. Giving police more discretion to act, and freeing up resources to allow them to do so by cutting procedural delays in court, is good news.
'We are also pleased to see that the stick is accompanied by the chance of re-education for moderate offenders.
"Raising the fine level to £100 is justifiable to tackle the plague of handheld mobile phone use which slows drivers' reaction times even more than being at the drink drive limit or taking cannabis. The police need to target the large number of motorists continuing to flout the law daily."
Last month the Mail reported that Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin was preparing action against antisocial drivers with increased fines.
Mr McLoughlin said unacceptable and potentially lethal behaviour such as texting, tweeting or using Facebook at the wheel was causing fatal accidents.
Hands-free mobile phone use while driving is legal. But the use of hand-held phones has been banned since 2003 and became an endorsable offence in 2007.
