Penalty points cross a fine line

NOW in my late sixties (oh all right, I'm 69) I reckon my driving is safer and more considered than it's been since I picked up my first set of car keys back in 1973. I was 17 and though I'd passed my test at the first go, I still had a lot to learn.

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But as far as I can remember, I rarely picked up points on my licence. Three for driving with a fractionally bald tyre (a particularly punctilious policeman nabbed me for that one); three decades later, for doing 80-something on the M5 (fair enough) and that's about it. I mostly motored with a clean licence or, for very rare interludes, one with no more than three points on it.