`Bad driving on the region's roads merits tough action'.

Plans to "red card" drivers for motoring misdemeanours met with a cold response from shoppers in Newcastle city centre last night.

While none doubted that North-East roads have fair their share of bad drivers, some questioned whether pulling them up was a sensible use of scarce police resources.

Lucy Macleod, 21, of Walkergate, said: "The police would be better off catching real criminals and fighting drug crime than chasing after motorists."

Her mother, Pauline, 41, agreed: "I think it would be very difficult to enforce and would take up an awful lot of police time."

Hazel Dowden, a company secretary from Sunderland, doubted whether the scheme could work.

She said: "Police should spend more time doing what they are paid to do which is upholding the law."

But her husband, Sam, 60, a company director, argued the amount of bad driving on the region's roads merited tough action.

He said: "People using their mobile phones while driving is a big problem. Then there are the speed merchants tearing around at well over the speed limit.

"There is a lot of bad driving going on and police need to do more to stop it. To do that we need more police."