Police in the Lothians will be leafleting boy racer 'cruising' sites in an effort to curb a recent spate of deaths and injuries among young drivers.
Today's young motorists - many of whom spend as much on body kits and engine upgrades as they do on essentials like road tax and young driver car insurance - have been blamed for an unprecedented five deaths and 35 serious injuries on West Lothian roads since the beginning of the year.
Nationwide, young drivers are now involved in 42% of serious crashes - that's a frightening rise from 27% three years ago.
Inspector Grant Allan is spearheading a campaign for greater awareness among young Scottish drivers. Officers will hand out leaflets at what are known as 'cruising' sites - rallying points for boy racers, typically in shopping centres, garages or car parks.
Inspector Allan said "We'll be going along to meet them in their own environments. Our leaflets give information on the problems that go along with high-performance vehicles and what constitutes dangerous or careless driving.
"It also includes a warning over the consequences of causing death by dangerous driving. The courts can impose jail sentences up to 14 years for what might be a moment of stupidity and young drivers need to be aware of that."
The leafleting stage of the campaign will take place during the first two weeks in August. Thereafter, police will take incrementally tougher measures to ensure any boy racers still driving dangerously see the error of their ways.
For the rest of August, police patrols will single out high -performance cars speeding or driving erratically. Offenders' mistakes will be recorded by officers and then played back to them. But in September, the same errors will result in car seizure under anti-social behaviour legislation.
Commenting on this story on an internet discussion forum, one young man spoke about the impact of boy racers in Edinburgh and their problems finding cheap car insurance.
Controversially, he wrote "I am 20, and I hate these horrible cars. They are noisy, pointless and just plain ugly.
"They drive in a built up area at double the speed limit, and a child walks out into the middle of the road - that's one child dead and the driver looking at a prison sentence of 10 years. And when he needs to be insured, he won't be touched by any company.
"Also, these boy racers don't have insurance - well, the majority don't. Why? Because they have souped-up their cars that much, they can't afford it!"