Notice of Intention to Prosecute - Speeding, PLEASE HELP

[Sheroo]

Hi,

 

I've recieved a notice of intention to prosecute (addressed to me and with my name on it) for speeding. The date of the being caught on Truvelo speed camera was 25/11/2011 in the evening, I have recieved the letter of intention today (16/12/2011) and it is dated 14/12/2011.

 

My car is privately leased and on the form provided where I have to fill in the details of the driver (even though they have my details ??), it advises the following in the Q&A bit where someone asks 'What if my notice arrived more than 14 days after the alleged offence, is it valid?':

 

'In ALL cases a notice of intention to prosecute will be served on the registered keeper of the vehicle within 14 days of alleged offence, if you recieved notice outside this period then you are a nominated driver and required by law to respond to the s172 request for driver information within the timescales provided'

 

It is true that I am a nominated driver as I am not the registered keeper of the car (that is the leasing company), can any good person please advise where I stand and how I should proceed please?

[simh2]

Hi,

 

I've recieved a notice of intention to prosecute (addressed to me and with my name on it) for speeding. The date of the being caught on Truvelo speed camera was 25/11/2011 in the evening, I have recieved the letter of intention today (16/12/2011) and it is dated 14/12/2011.

 

My car is privately leased and on the form provided where I have to fill in the details of the driver (even though they have my details ??), it advises the following in the Q&A bit where someone asks 'What if my notice arrived more than 14 days after the alleged offence, is it valid?':

 

'In ALL cases a notice of intention to prosecute will be served on the registered keeper of the vehicle within 14 days of alleged offence, if you recieved notice outside this period then you are a nominated driver and required by law to respond to the s172 request for driver information within the timescales provided'

 

It is true that I am a nominated driver as I am not the registered keeper of the car (that is the leasing company), can any good person please advise where I stand and how I should proceed please?

 

Fill in all your details if you were the driver+ send it back to them, depending on your speed they may offer you a speed awaresness course which costs more than the fine but you dont get points on your licence ( had the same situation myself back in the summer )

[Sheroo]

Fill in all your details if you were the driver+ send it back to them, depending on your speed they may offer you a speed awaresness course which costs more than the fine but you dont get points on your licence ( had the same situation myself back in the summer )

 

Thanks for prompt response, clocked doing 39 on a 30 zone, but it was a dual carraigeway and I assumed 40 would be fine as no signposts, ah well you live and learn. First offence for over 10 years!

[simh2]

Thanks for prompt response, clocked doing 39 on a 30 zone, but it was a dual carraigeway and I assumed 40 would be fine as no signposts, ah well you live and learn. First offence for over 10 years!

 

got told on the speed awareness course that generally up to 9 mph over the limit you get offered the course as an option ( depending on which police force caught you ) if you haven't been caught previously in the last 3 years

[Sheroo]

got told on the speed awareness course that generally up to 9 mph over the limit you get offered the course as an option ( depending on which police force caught you ) if you haven't been caught previously in the last 3 years

 

Thaks how much was the cost of the course? It's Greater Manchester Police

[esmerobbo]

Greater Manchester was £79.50 you may just be inside the limit they quote 30 +10% +6mph so you are bang on the limit!

 

http://www.drivesafe.org.uk/index.php/home/speed-awareness

[Old Snowy]

There is a fairly common degree of ignorance that 30mph limits are not required to be signed other than at their commencement. In other words you would pass signs as you enter a 30mph limit but there will be no repeaters once within the area covered by the limit as there might be for other speeds provided there is a system of streetlighting with the lights being no more than 183m apart.

 

The acceptance criteria for speed awareness courses overseen by NDORS (National Driver Offender Re-training Scheme) - an ACPO offshoot - were amended in October this year increasing the band from signed limit + 10% + 6mph to signed limit + 10% + 9mph. In respect of 30mph limits, under the old scheme, those detected at 39mph were generally offered courses although it sat on the cusp of the accepted bracket. Clearly, under the new scheme that speed is well within the acceptable range and there would be no reason to think that a course wouldn't be offered provided that the police area concerned operate NDORS approved courses.

 

No speed awareness courses are offered in Scotland. At least one force (Avon & Somerset) I can immediately bring to mind run their own courses which are not NDORS approved and they can effectively set their own speed criterion although they mirrored the previous NDORS scheme. Another force (Cheshire) operate NDORS courses but set their own criteria which was at 10% plus 5mph. I have not heard that this has been increased since ACPO announced the change.

[danielr]

Hi,

 

I've recieved a notice of intention to prosecute (addressed to me and with my name on it) for speeding. The date of the being caught on Truvelo speed camera was 25/11/2011 in the evening, I have recieved the letter of intention today (16/12/2011) and it is dated 14/12/2011.

 

My car is privately leased and on the form provided where I have to fill in the details of the driver (even though they have my details ??), it advises the following in the Q&A bit where someone asks 'What if my notice arrived more than 14 days after the alleged offence, is it valid?':

 

'In ALL cases a notice of intention to prosecute will be served on the registered keeper of the vehicle within 14 days of alleged offence, if you recieved notice outside this period then you are a nominated driver and required by law to respond to the s172 request for driver information within the timescales provided'

 

It is true that I am a nominated driver as I am not the registered keeper of the car (that is the leasing company), can any good person please advise where I stand and how I should proceed please?

The 14 days bit is interesting...

 

Their advice on the letter is contradictory! I mean how can you have received notice within 14 days when their letter serving the notice is dated 19 days after the offence!!

(but they say, we did serve within 14 days, really we did don't even thing about challenging it -the same as you'll also notice that they also try to dispel other common attacks with listing saying, all out camera points are approved, we don't hide out camera cars around corners, all our equipment is calibrated all the time etc...) even though their statements are lies, certainly when I was caught speeding before they most certainly were hidden around a corner!

 

Anyway, the problem is that the truth is clearly that they were late in providing the summons.

 

but, and here's the bad news.

because you have a lease car, and you are not listed as the registered keeper the process of finding the registered keeper takes longer, so if they had originally sent notice to the lease company, or it was the lease company who provided the hold up, within the 14 days, then it won't matter that it took so long to get to you. (at least that's what I've read.) so long as the police are dilligent and can prove that it's not their hold up that was the problem, then they are OK.

 

So... you have a choice, either fight on a technicality, turn up in cpurt risk the points and risk the larger fine.

or write down that you accept the offence, don't contest, phone up and pay the fine. accept that you'll have points on your license.

 

If you are lucky, you'll be offered a speed awareness course.

-when I was caught speeding I was offered a speed awareness course, that was after I'd already surrendered my license, and already paid the fine. As I accepted the course, my license was returned without any points, and the fine was refunded to the card I'd paid on.

 

 

The speed awareness course is not guaranteed, it depends on the speed you were going and the force that caught you. (whether they offer the schemes.)

[Aretnap]

My car is privately leased and on the form provided where I have to fill in the details of the driver (even though they have my details ??)

The lease company will have named you as the person to whom the vehicle was leased. They cannot know whether it was actually you driving it on the 25th November. Hence the need for a separate request for driver details to you. Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act makes it an offence not to provide this information, and not providing it would be more harshly punished than speeding.

 

Provided the earlier NIP to the registered keeper arrived on or before 9th December then the requirement to serve a NIP within 14 days of the offence was satisfied.

 

So long as the police are diligent and can prove that it's not their hold up that was the problem, then they are OK.

That's not correct; if the NIP is delayed by a postal hold up there is a defence to the charge. See Gidden v Chief Constable of Humberside. The question doesn't arrive though, as only the first NIP to the registered keeper (the lease company) need be served in 14 days. There is no time limit on subsequent NIPs.

[danielr]

Provided the earlier NIP to the registered keeper arrived on or before 9th December then the requirement to serve a NIP within 14 days of the offence was satisfied.

And there's the problem, you don't know if it was, and it's a big gamble to try and argue on that point alone.

 

I guess what I meant to say was that... provided that they'd approached the registered keeper within 14 days, the lease company could have taken weeks and your NIP could have arrived months later, but it wouldn't have mattered as it wasn't the police holding things up. they'd done their job in the required time.

I've read that there is also a course for them to have missed the deadline if the DVLA is late getting back to them, so for example if the DVLA took a few days and this meant that the 14 day deadline was missed then there maybe leeway for the police there too. (but I've only read that on the internet -on a forum, not in anything legal.)

 

I didn't know what's written in the link above, but it seems that even if they do serve on time, (so if both the letter and postmark are correct) if there is abnormal activity at the post office, and it is delivered late then it's not deemed to be served on time either...

relying on the words "the letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post", if the post is un-ordinary at that time then the specific part of that act can't apply (that is pretty cool.)

 

At the end of the day, what you have is a strange situation where.

the letter could arrive to you (dated and obviously posted) late and there are a number of circumstances where that's OK, there is no "get out"

and yet at the same time, the letter could arrive late, yet be dated and postmarked correctly, and yet not deemed to have been served within the time limit... -there is a "get out"

[Sheroo]

Thanks for taking the time to respond guys. I'm going to chalk this up to experience and see what happens...

[Worstluckever]

There is a fairly common degree of ignorance that 30mph limits are not required to be signed other than at their commencement. In other words you would pass signs as you enter a 30mph limit but there will be no repeaters once within the area covered by the limit as there might be for other speeds provided there is a system of streetlighting with the lights being no more than 183m apart.

 

The acceptance criteria for speed awareness courses overseen by NDORS (National Driver Offender Re-training Scheme) - an ACPO offshoot - were amended in October this year increasing the band from signed limit + 10% + 6mph to signed limit + 10% + 9mph. In respect of 30mph limits, under the old scheme, those detected at 39mph were generally offered courses although it sat on the cusp of the accepted bracket. Clearly, under the new scheme that speed is well within the acceptable range and there would be no reason to think that a course wouldn't be offered provided that the police area concerned operate NDORS approved courses.

 

No speed awareness courses are offered in Scotland. At least one force (Avon & Somerset) I can immediately bring to mind run their own courses which are not NDORS approved and they can effectively set their own speed criterion although they mirrored the previous NDORS scheme. Another force (Cheshire) operate NDORS courses but set their own criteria which was at 10% plus 5mph. I have not heard that this has been increased since ACPO announced the change.

 

 

 

 

This is so helpful but I'm still a little lost .

I have been driving since dec 2008. I was caught 1mph over whatever it was that we can go to with extras and offered a course which I took up in 2009 dec...

 

I have now been caught in Manchester on a 30mph doing 45 .... It makes me sound awful but I am not a bad driver and actually really conscious of being safe.

 

I just wondered what you all think will happen ... I've sent the form back and logged on to the online thing , but I'm so scared they'd I'll take my licence and my car is my only freedom now. It keeps me and family and friends I look after alive you could say so I need to prepa myself if that is going to happen .

 

I am 21 just finished my degree and therefore student debt is not going to cover this and I don't want to worry my parents.

 

Thanks for your help all x

[danielr]

The scheme (at least the Acpo one run by Drivetech) has a two year time restriction.

 

so for example, I was caught speeding in March 2008. I went on a speed awareness course.

I was caught speeding in August 2011, I went on a speed awareness course. (as it was more than two years since my last offence I was eligiable for the course.

I was caught speeding in January 2012, so I get points on my license. (because it's less than two years since I went on the course)

 

Does that make sense?

[crem]

This is so helpful but I'm still a little lost .

I have been driving since dec 2008. I was caught 1mph over whatever it was that we can go to with extras and offered a course which I took up in 2009 dec...

 

I just wondered what you all think will happen ... I've sent the form back and logged on to the online thing , but I'm so scared they'd I'll take my licence and my car is my only freedom now.

 

 

You have been driving now for more than 2 years so the New Driver's Act no longer applies to you so you are "allowed" the full 12 points possible on your licence before you loose it. As you accepted a course the 1st time in 2009, no points were put on your licence on that occasion.

 

I presume you don't have any other offences that have added points to your licence so, IMO, an offence of 45 in a 30 wil most likely result in the "standard" penalty of a fine (usually £60) plus 3 points on your licence. I don'e see any danger of you loosing your licence over this.

[Aretnap]

The scheme (at least the Acpo one run by Drivetech) has a two year time restriction.

It's a three year restriction on doing speed awareness courses - presumably to mirror the 3 years that points are valid for totting purposes.

 

To Worstluckever - you're not going to be banned for 45 in a 30, unless you already have 9 points on your licence. Expect a fixed penalty of 3 points and £60. Fixed penalties are nrmally offered at up to 49 in 30, or up to 25mph above higher limits.