MORE than half a million drivers have avoided getting points on their licences by getting a partner to admit to a speeding offence, a survey has found.

The growing practice of points-swapping is believed to be saving thousands of motorists each year from being banned from driving for accumulating 12 penalty points.

A survey of 2,000 drivers by Churchill Insurance found that 2.2 per cent admitted to taking points on behalf of their partner. With 33 million licence-holders, this is the equivalent of 726,000 drivers. A third said that they would consider asking their partners to admit to their speeding offence if it prevented them from losing their licence. The overwhelming majority of those who had taken points on behalf of a partner were women.

The survey follows extensive anecdotal evidence of wives accepting penalties in order to allow their husbands to keep their jobs. One in seven motorists in the survey said that they would be unable to work if they lost their licences.

Police chiefs have been puzzled why the number of people being disqualified for gaining a fourth three-point penalty has fallen while the number of speeding tickets has multiplied.

In 2003, 1.8 million offences were detected by speed cameras, up from 500,000 in 1999. Yet the number of people disqualified for acquiring 12 points fell from 34,000 to 33,000.

The RAC Foundation said that the rise in points-swapping helped to explain the discrepancy. Edmund King, the foundation's director, said that the survey supported widespread anecdotal evidence of points fraud.

He said: "The temptations are great for those who would lose their livelihoods. The wife may be faced with a choice between the family being plunged into poverty or accepting the points which her husband had incurred."

The survey also undermines claims that the low number of disqualifications proves that speed cameras are working. The AA Motoring Trust has argued that drivers must be learning their lesson after gaining three speeding penalties because so few went on to pick up four.

Paul Smith, founder of the anti-camera campaign SafeSpeed, said that it was more likely that a large proportion of those drivers on the brink of a ban asked a relative or friend to take the points for any further offences.

He said that points-swapping was a product of a camera-based system in which no police officer was involved in stopping the driver.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said that points-swapping was very difficult to detect and usually came to light only when a couple got divorced and the wife accused the husband of passing his points on to her. Ian Bell, Acpo's speed camera liaison officer, said that there were no routine checks on whether the person admitting to an offence was the person who had committed it: "While Gatsos photograph the rear of the vehicle, others, like Truvelos and mobile cameras, take a picture of the front and may show who was driving. But if we have got an admission by a driver, there would be no reason to check."

In January, a father was jailed for four months for perverting the course of justice after claiming that a French friend had been responsible for a speeding offence committed by his daughter. David Simmonite, 60, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, had hoped to spare his daughter, Stephanie, from receiving three points after she was flashed at 87mph on the A1 in Grantham, Lincolnshire.

Police checked with the Frenchman and found that he was at home being treated for a kidney complaint at the time.

The Home Office said a person who accepted points on behalf of someone else would be charged with perjury, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment.

Life in the fast lane

• The fixed penalty for speeding is £60 and 3 points. Points remain on the driving licence for three years
  
• Drivers receive a six-month automatic ban after accumulating 12 points
  
• 16 per cent of drivers have gained speeding points in the past five years, according to a survey of 2,000 motorists by Churchill Insurance
  
• There are 6,000 fixed and mobile speed camera sites in Britain. Speed cameras detected 6.4 million offences between 1995 and 2003