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Call for tougher action on foreign car drivers
Last Updated: 2:09am GMT 09/01/2008

A police officer has called for tough action on foreign drivers who break the law in Britain after a 25-year-old was killed by a Polish woman driving the wrong way around a roundabout.

Superintendent Mick Doyle, the head of roads policing for Thames Valley Police, said the number of migrants coming in to the country but not forced by law to take a British driving test had caused a huge problem on the roads.

"There has been a huge influx of lawful migrants coming to the Thames Valley but there is no obligation upon them to learn in much the same way as we do, and drive without restriction," he said.

"The Baltic States have a particularly poor safety record, and other Eastern European countries also have high fatality rates compared to the UK."

Joanna Filipiak was jailed for nine months for causing the death of Sheena Grant. Filipiak, who had admitted causing death by dangerous driving, was also banned for two years. She had collided with a car in which Miss Grant was a passenger in Basing-stoke, Hants, in Nov 2006.

Is it time to force people moving to this country to take a UK driving test? I know that legally speaking you have to do so after living here 6 months, but how many immigrants actually do so?