Tourists driving in the Scottish Highlands are being encouraged to display “T-plates” in the hope it will reduce accidents. The signs, which feature a green letter T and have “tourist” written at the bottom, are intended to alert other road users that the driver might not be familiar with Scotland’s roads, says the BBC.

It comes after Transport Scotland warned earlier this year that the number of crashes caused by “inexperience of driving on the left” had increased sharply.

Kingussie-based hotelier Robert Marshall, who created the plates, said he came up with the idea after his own “awful” driving experience in Tenerife which he said left him “completely stressed out my head”.

Mr Marshall described his own anxiety on driving in a foreign country:

“Just reaching roundabouts, junctions, just starting the journey initially – I was on the wrong side of the road, every control and dial was in a different place – and I just was screaming at my partner ‘I wish these people knew I was a tourist,'” he said.

As well as his own experience abroad he said he had seen first hand how stressful it can be for visitors driving in Scotland, and he hoped the plates would help.

“It’s a simple idea but it’s one that’s really started conversations about road safety,” he said.

(Pic: Freepik)