Fixed Penalty Screw Ups

If you are caught by a speed camera and therefore disqualified under totting up how hard done by would you feel if a couple of YEARS later the authorities wrote to you to say "Sorry, we made a mistake, we want to remove those penalty points now and give you your money back?"

We are presently dealing with a case where exactly that happened. He lost his licence, his job, his house and nearly his relationship. He managed to re train and has since been working in a job that doesn't require him to drive but as you can imagine,he feels justifiably upset.

We contacted the Authority concerned to ask how many such letters were sent out to be told that 900 had gone. This nightmare could have been repeated at least 900 times.
We are told that it occurred because of a "signage issue" and that we should really speak with the Council. Well, you can bet that we will be speaking to the"counsel" but it is going to be the counsel (QC) who can assist in bringing a civil remedy that provides some recompense for this poor man and his family.

It is not the first time and it won't be the last. I suppose it is human nature to assume in our sophisticated society that the authorities and the speed camera boys always get it right but in my own experience nothing could be further from the truth. An important aspect of evidence in some speeding trials can be something called the "measured half mile" This is the distance that the police use to calibrate their some equipment etc by checking against this undisputable distance they can perform the Speed = distance over time calculation and work out that everything they have is in tip top accurate condition. The problem is when some wee road worker comes along, digs up the road and then puts the white square back in the wrong place! Yes, it does happen. As a routine procedure we check the measured half mile that is referred to in cases and we measured it we discovered that it was several yards short of the 1/2 mile and therefore every prosecution that had relied upon it should have fallen. We were certainly successful in having the Crown drop our case but I sometimes wonder if they contacted everyone that had been prosecuted?
If you want to know how you should deal with a speeding trial you can get plenty of free information from the roadtrafficlaw.com website or if you have a concern regarding a "False Penalty" then please just give us a call and we will provide you with a free initial consultation.

The Section 172 Debate (Right of Silence)

I have just had another couple of clients on the phone complaining about their lack of a right of silence in speeding cases. I am just a lawyer and I deal with the law the way it is but if people feel strongly about this area they should be banging on to their MP and MSP about it.

Whether you regard Idris Francis as an arrogant idiot or a defender of justice you will no doubt have heard of his case. Everyday we are asked "What shall I do? I've received a Notice of Intended Prosecution and it says I must answer" Well, you must. Let's not beat about the bush, what you want to do is to throw the bloody notice in the bin and forget about it but you know that it won't go away, so easily.

You may have broken the law and your wake up call is that you now have less rights than a murder suspect. A murder suspect or indeed a suspect in relation to any other crime need not make a statement that may incriminate himself.

Why are drivers a breed apart? It would seem that our government, here and in Europe consider that you have earned the right to drive by passing a test and now you are entitled to drive under a contract called Road Traffic legislation. One of the fundamental pieces of that legislation is the Road Traffic Act 1988 and section 172 of that Act imposes a duty to give information in certain circumstances. Those circumstances tend to be speeding offences and with the profusion of speed cameras around (More in the UK than any other country in Europe) we know how important our government considers this issue to be.

Personally I consider the Idris Francis characters of our country to be principled people who will not allow the State to ride roughshod over our basic human rights. Of course there is a strong argument that upholds the principle that the State should require certain human rights to be set aside in the greater interest of society, but who, where and why is that line drawn.
If it is ok for the state to remove a right of silence with a piece of legislation (Road Traffic Act) is it ok for the State to remove that right in more serious cases such as murder?
Should murder suspects have a right to silence or should they be compelled to comment? Presently we have a situation that means if a murder suspect does not make a comment or insists upon his right of silence this can be commented upon at trial but this is not the same as removing the right of silence completely.
We might expect that a terrorist suspect will have less rights than the usual suspect as the consequences of one terrorist act are so vast. Since this risk to society is higher then society cannot be as free as desired. I think most people understand the arguments when it comes to high level crime but tend to feel that motorists are hammered with sentences that are really disproportionate to the crime committed. Is it right that a man should lose his licence, job mortgage and who knows what else because he has a dozen penalty points on his licence over the course of three years? How can that really reflect the nature of the offence.
Many people can accept that speeding can be dangerous and should be punished but when we look around Europe we see our neighbours imposing fines not hammering penalty points into the coffins of drivers.