They are not trained to the same standards as they are part time, but they do carry a warrant card which is however only valid when they are on duty. It still does not get away from the fact that in law for any copper to pull a driver over he/she has to be in uniform. And because of the kit and equipment that even the unmarked cars still have to carry, a Corsa of any description would not meet the operational requirements.

As a retired Traffic, cop, there are a number of issues you have raised. Firstly, there is no requirement to video the offence or have camera evidence. On a single carriageway, on a following check, it must be over a distance of at least 3/10 of a mile on a Motorway or dual carriageway the following check has to be over at least 1 mile. It matters not whether the vehicle is marked or unmarked, but if it is a following check, then it must either be against a calibrated speedometer (which usually has its calibration checked once a week) or as soon as possible after reporting the alleged offended, it must be checked against a certified speedometer or a certified stopwatch over the measured mile and this must be entered into evidence. An experience traffic cop is entitled to report for an offence of speed reckless which is an estimation of speed and there is no speed recorded, but to be honest is very rarely used these days. But the biggest issue and one that is unlawful is the fact that you were stopped and reported by an officer in plain clothes. Only a Police officer in uniform is allowed to stop a motorist and report for traffic offences. If the copper is in plain clothes, then the stop becomes unlawful. A uniform can be anything deemed as uniform by the chief officer. For example these days many where what looks like black combat fatigues and baseball caps. If that is what is deemed as uniform, and is identifiable as being a uniform then fine, but if the copper was clearly in plain clothes and had to produce his warrant card to prove his position, then that stop is unlawful and is a statutory defence. If the copper was using a Corsa, I very much doubt that he was in any case a traffic cop. Traffic tend to use Vectra's, Volvo's and BMW's, Corsa's are used as local patrol or divisional vehicles, so I very much doubt that he was even an advanced driver. I think you need to speak to a specialist traffic offence solicitor about this, because of your statutory defence and the fact that the way you were dealt with was unlawful. A good specialist solicitor will be able to drive a bus through the coppers evidence, although, it should be thrown out before it even gets to court. A Police vehicle is allowed to travel and accelerate up to whatever speed is appropriate and safe to assist the officer in the execution of his duty, and this includes speed enforcement, but I question whether a Corsa would be capable of attaining 125mph, so again another shhred of doubt in the evidence.

The reason you are required to have a minimum of third party insurance is so that it will cover any claims made by the third party in any claim against you. All you need to do is pass any correspondence onto your insurers and they should take care of it for you. You need to find out why your insurers are saying that they are not prepared settle the claim made by the third party. Providing the claim from the other side is reasonable and liability has been settled, they cannot refuse to pay the third party costs unless there is a question mark over the validity of the claim. Even if this £100 fee is regarded as an uninsured loss, I still do not see why your insurers should refuse to pay it, because if it went to the small claims court to recover this fee, your insurers would still be required to pay out.

Uninsured losses are things such as your excess, or anything else that has not been covered as part of your claim, but usually just the excess that you are required to pay. So for example if your excess is £400, then your claim would be to recover your uninsured losses of £400 plus the costs of issuing proceedings.

For a ticket to be invalid, there has to be a fundamental error in the evidence and/or the details recorded on the ticket. The fact that the points box has nothing in it, does not invalidate the FPN, and if you have surrendered your licence to the stopping officer, your licence will come back with 3 points on it for the offence.

The simple solution is to issue proceedings to recover the excess from the third party driver, but include the Hire company as the 2nd deffendant. The Hire company still have a statutory duty to maintain a minimum of third party cover otherwise they can commit the offence themselves of use, cause or permit a vehicle to be used without insurance (aid and abet offence), otherwise the hire driver should have been dealt with for TWOC (Taking without owners consent) which is a criminal offence and an arrestable offence. It sounds like the hire company are just trying to string things out, but get either your insurance company (or if they won't do it, then it is easy to do yourself) to issue proceedings for the recovery of the uninsured losses and that tends to focus their minds

You are right, the injury part of the claim called general damages can only be paid to the claimant (the person making the claim) The special damages which would cover the finance can either be paid directly to the finance company or to the claimant for them to then pay the finance company

It has been accepted by the courts of appeal that providing the primary information in respect of the offence is correct and does not detract from the integrity and honesty under which the FPN was issued, then the ticket remains vailid. In one case, the drivers date of birth was written down incorrectly, but the validity of the ticket remained, in another, the drivers name was miss spelt, but again it remained valid. So the fact that the copper failed to sign the ticket has no bearing, in fact the copper being required to sign a ticket is quite new as it was never a requirement in my day.

Vouch for Green Flag every time. Knock the RAC and AA into a cocked hat for service. Maybe because they use local firms who get paid for each call out and can lose their contract if they don't, where the AA and RAC patrols are employed and do not have the same sense of urgency.

It is not the Police who put up speed cameras, it is the local authority who set them up. Once upon a time the Police had to be consulted, but the regulations changed a few years ago and now any local authority can set up a camera providing the appropriate regulations are in place. The Police are simply required to enforce it.

Really? Then look again! The majority are claims management firms who are owned by law firms. Claims Direct is a claims management firm although owned by RJW

I agree with you that the claims management firms are the bain of the legal professions life and tar everyone with the same brush, but you of all people should appreciate that with the deregulation of the legal profession and the introduction of ABS, it is no longer a case of people coming to you just because you are a solicitor. Hence the reason why so many law firms are going to the wall. The insurance companies must also shoulder much of the blame as they are probably the most guilty of selling on details in return for a fat referral fee (which is now illegal), but simply being a solicitor is no longer valid. But if as you say you are yourself a legal professional, then to dismiss the no win no fee system suggests that you need to look at how the CFA works

Take it whichever way you wish.. I am not a solicitor, but I work in the legal profession advising solicitors, barristers and other legal professionals on matters relating to road traffic law, and it annoys the hell out of me when people make assumptions and comments showing that they clearly have no understanding of how the legal system works.

My apologies, I was not aware that PM's are also affected in the same way. I should hasten to add that I was not touting for business as I only deal with multi track cases not fast track.

It is not the fact that you undertook that has dropped you in it, it is the fact that you undertook in lane 2 at speed and then shot into lane 1 again at speed. There is no specific offence of nearside overtake (undertake) as it was removed from the statute books with the introduction of the 1972 Road Traffic Act, so given your actions coupled with your speed, they have to prove careless driving which means that the prosecution has to prove that your standard of driving fell well below that expected of a reasonably safe and competent driver. Had you carried out single vehicle nearside undertake at a reasonable speed you would have got away with it, but your speed was the aggravating factor which is sufficient to convict you for the careless driving offence (section 3 RTA 1988), which to be honest is a result because I have seen people convicted of (and I have booked people myself) for the section 2 offence of Dangerous Driving in a very similar situation to yours. As mentioned, go to court in person and speak to the duty solicitor because depending on what area you are, and which court you appear at, you could well be looking at a ban.

Could I suggest that you do some research before you say too much of a generalisation. First and foremost, the majority of personal injury law firms use no win no fee as a means to fund cases (or to give it its proper title, a Conditional Fee Agreement). The CFA was introduced in 2001 when legal aid was withdrawn from personal injury claims, mainly because legal aid was means tested therefore only a small proportion of the population were eligible. The CFA means that proper legal representation is available to everyone. It also allows the claimant to choose who she/he wants to instruct whether it be by way of recommendation or personal knowledge, and is actually far better than using solicitors appointed by legal expenses insurance. With LEI, the claimant gets stuck with whatever law firm they instruct who is often a conveyor belt firm at the other end of the country who will get paid regardless of win or lose. Under a CFA, the solicitor only gets paid if they win, and so they are more likely to fight your corner. They are also required to carry out a risk assessment on be confident that on the balance of probability they have a 51% or better chance of winning in order to be able to get the after the event insurance that is required in order to protect them from nasty third party legal costs in the event that the case goes to trial and they lose. In the event of winning, the claimants solicitors will get their costs back from the third party, although be aware that from the 1st of April, solicitors can no longer claim a success fee on smaller cases and so they are allowed to now make a small deduction from the claimants award. That said, many firms have decided against this, but some will. By and large, a no win no fee arrangement is the best way of funding a case, but because of a few claims management firms having screwed people in the past (Claims Direct and The Accident Group being 2 who spring immediately to mind) but they were claims management firms not regulated law firms. Also bear in mind that most claims management firms made their money by spam emails and cold calls and then got paid up to £1,000 for referring the case to one of their tame law firms who were/are desperate for business. Referral fees are now illegal, and so third party claims firms will try all sorts of new tricks.

As mentioned elsewhere, this would have been a fast track claim and so unless proceedings are issued, then only fixed costs of £800 are payable to the claimants Solicitors (and the claim is dealt with through the portal system) and even then if it goes to trial costs are limited at £1400. Given that this case clearly did not go to trial, then fixed fees of £800 would have applied.

A question probably worth asking is what was the proportion of the settlement in respect of damage v injury? If the damage reports were that detailed and given the evidence available, it would suggest that the injury payment has taken the lions share of the settlement, but again given the evidence that you are able to produce, had they investigated properly (which by right they have 3 months to do from date of letter of claim) it suggests that they did not investigate very well and have taken everything on face value. This could suggest negligence on the part of the MIB, but it would certainly in my opinion be worth asking the question.

I think you have covered everything very well and puts forward a reasonable argument. I would certainly be interested to know what the MIB's response is because given that they are using monies collected from our premiums (like tax payers money), they usually tend to go the other way and try and pay the minimum, where this is the flip side and they appear to have given away money that was not deserving. Interested to know whether they also deducted the standard £350 excess which is the norm on the damage part of an MIB claim.

I only used this scenario as an example as there is no guarantee that the full 12 points will be awarded and I have been in court on several occasions (in a professional capacity) where defendants in just this situation have been awarded lower points. They can amalgamate a number of offences committed on the same day to one overall offence (even though they are still recorded as seperate offences) and therefore issue a concurrent penalty which can be a reduction in points.

This is why you need to speak to them yourself. They have previous for ignoring their own rules, and you can always use this as a stick to get an answer before going to the ombudsman

If there is a suggestion that the claim has been falsified by the third party, for example a false personal injury claim, then you can ask the MIB ot flag this up and re-investigate as they can also refer it to the Insurance Fraud Bureau which is run by the City of London Police but covers insurance claim frauds nationally. But you still really need to speak to the MIB and then if you get no joy, then try speaking to the Insurance Ombudsman and get their take on things.

If the summons has only just arrived then it is within the time frame as the Prosecution must lay information before magistrates within 6 months of the date of the alleged offence even though it can be several more months before the summonses are actually issued. If your friend goes to court, there is usually a duty Solicitor who will be able to provide free advice and representation, but check with the court to find out whether a duty solicitor will be available on the date of the hearing. Lastly, if a number of different offences were committed at different times on the same day, then in most cases all the offences will be lumped together to make one (if that makes sense) so in affect rather than the 12 points for 2 seperate offences, they will award say 9 points instead. And you are right, legal aid is not available for summonsed motoring offences, only for the most serious.

If someone reports an allegation of an offence after a crash has occurred, then the Police are obliged to send out a Notice of Intended Prosecution. They have to list all the possible offences that may have been alleged or committed, which would include (in this case) dangerous and careless driving as well as the failing to stop and report. In a damage only crash, you are required to provide the names and addresses of the drivers of the vehicles, names and addresses of the owners of the vehicles, registration marks and only in the case of injury are you required to exchange insurance details. The fact that you only gave your name and registration number means that you have in effect committed the offence of failing to stop, but the other driver also has the same obligation, which may be why it was reported as in the event that drivers fail to comply with the law at the time, it must be reported in person to the Police as soon as practicable but in any case within 24 hours. That said, the fact that the other driver reversed into the carriageway and into your path makes her guilty of careless driving and is absolute, so you can make a counter allegation. But, from the sounds of it, it appears that this has been a malicious allegation made by the third party, however the Police are still obliged to send out the NIP to cover their back sides until such time as the investigation has been completed. It appears the third party is being vindictive and as mentioned previously, it would be wise to make an appointment as soon as possible and give your account of the circumstances.

The fact that the MIB were involved, I assume (and I am not making judgement here) you were uninsured at the time of the crash? When the MIB become involved they in essence become the defendant insurers and assume all rights of the uninsured or untraced party. As a result, there is no obligation to consult you, and they will agree what is regarded as a reasonable settlement with the third party and then go after the uninsured party to recover those costs or at least a substantial part of those costs. You need to contact the MIB and discuss the matter directly with them, but do not hold your breath, they are also in any case something of a law onto themselves anyway.