National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme (N-DORS)

The National Driver Offender Retraining Schemes (N-DORS) have been set up to provide the Police with an alternative way of dealing with certain classes of motoring offenders, rather than resorting to prosecution in nearly every case.

There are three distinct schemes under the overall umbrella of N-DORS namely:

The Driver Improvement Scheme (DIS)
The Rider Intervention Development Experience (RiDE)
The Speed Awareness Course. (SAC)

The steering group which pulled these three schemes together consists of:

• The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)
• The Association of Chief Police Officers, Scotland (ACPOS)
• The Association of National Driver Improvement Scheme Providers (ANDISP)
• The Driving Standards Agency (DSA)
• The Department for Transport (DfT)
• The Home Office
• Road Safety GB, and
• The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS).

These court diversion schemes find their origins within the Road Traffic Law Review of 1988 known as the 'North Report' after its author, Dr. Peter North.

"It must be in the public interest to rectify a fault rather than punish the transgressor" and "Retraining of traffic offenders may lead to an improvement in their driving, particularly if their training is angled towards their failings". From this he recommended: "A pilot study of training in basic driving skills should be undertaken to determine whether such retraining produces a lasting improvement in the driving skills if the offenders undertaking it." Dr. Peter North.

Driver and rider improvement schemes have been run in the Cleveland area for over 10 years, an initiative introduced by the Cleveland Casualty Reduction Group. This was a nationally prepared and delivered course particularly aimed at those drivers and riders who committed minor traffic offences such as careless and/or inconsiderate driving/riding.

N-DORS has formalised such courses and added speed awareness to create national standardised courses to be delivered by approved service providers.