COURTS are to stop dealing with low-level motoring offences, including speeding, the Lord Chancellor has announced.
Lord Falconer signalled a significant change in the way so-called minor offences will be handled by the criminal justice system, saying he was determined to introduce more summary justice.
A new "bulk processing centre" is being set up to deal with motoring offences as well as TV licence dodgers.
It will be operational within months. Lord Falconer stressed that he wants to see crime dealt with more "quickly and directly".
He said it takes an average of 153 days from an offence being committed to it being dealt with by magistrates.
He said: "In many cases we need to return to a connection between crime and its disposal in the courts which is much more quick and much more direct."
Lord Falconer also ruled out dramatic reforms to the criminal justice system which have been advocated by Home Secretary Charles Clarke.
Lord Falconer said: "I think what we need to do is make the current system work in a much more efficient way.
"I think that means being willing to divert very low-level cases out of the magistrates' court and to be more willing to use things like conditional cautions.
'Superior'
"There is no need to go down the inquisitorial road."
Last week Mr Clarke told MPs that an investigatory justice system like that in France was "very superior" to the traditional British adversarial system.
Lord Falconer said of the offences being moved out of the courts: "They will remain criminal but they will not be dealt with in court.
"That does not include driving without insurance, which is something which remains a serious offence."
Motorists who deny committing the offences will still get the chance to go to court.
Lord Falconer said: "We will have a criminal justice system which will be speedier, simpler and make more use of summary justice. This is a fundamentally new way of delivering justice that focuses much more clearly on proportionality of process.
"It is an approach that rightly will be the subject of discussion. But it is also an approach where we can and should make progress."
Last September the country's top police officer, Sir Ian Blair, proposed a new breed of supercop with on-the-spot powers to confiscate driving licences and issue anti-social behaviour orders.
They were backed by the Association of Chief Police Officers.
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From what I can see, this country will soon be a Facist State. The right to go to court removed, the right to have a new born prem baby given the chance of life, the right to be innocent until proven guilty and laws forced on us by a shower of money grabbing cretins in Brussels. We are being lead like sheep to the slaughter. Our rights are being eroded bit by bit and we are taking not a bind bit of notice.
A quote from a while ago says it all: 'Of course this is the end of British democracy as we have known it, but if its properly handled the people won't know what's happened until the end of the century. With any luck, old boy, I'll be dead by then.'
A Senior Civil Servant on the EU.
Well that has come true and now you can see how a government can abuse it's power. It's a sad state of affairs when the people of a country can do nothing even when they vote in a "democratic" government.