KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
In this month’s edition we feature more road traffic issues relevant to the trade supplied by Patterson Law. These questions are based on real enquiries that we have received from professional drivers this month. If you need any advice on motoring matters please email
e.patterson@
pattersonlaw.co.uk or call 01626 359800 for free legal advice. For regular updates on road traffic law follow us on
facebook.com/PattersonLawMotoringSolicitors or
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out of date. When the police pulled me over they told me it would also invalidate my insurance because they wouldn’t pay out if I had an accident. What am I looking at and can you help?
A Q
The offence is called “driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence”. There are two types of offence, the first is when you are “driving oth- erwise than in accordance with a licence that could have been granted to you” and puts you
at risk of three-six penalty points. This covers cases where you are driving a vehicle that you are not autho- rised to drive, for example you only have a car licence but are driving a motorbike, or you have a PSV licence but are driving an HGV.
There is then a separate offence where you are driving on, for example, an expired licence (as long as you haven’t been disqualified or revoked) but have simply forgotten to renew it. So if you are still driving a vehicle that you are entitled to drive then this would be a fine only and there are no penalty points attributable.
However, this would not necessarily invalidate your in- surance. The insurance company cannot simply cancel your policy retrospectively. If your policy was running at the time there is a good argument to say that you were insured (at least for the purposes of penalty points and the Road Traffic Act; it may be different if you’d actually had a crash and they refused to pay out).
Q 98
I went for a socially distanced drink with my wife last week. She only had soft drinks but I had a few pints with lunch. She is learning to drive and I agreed that I would supervise her on the way
home. I have a full licence, she has insurance and we put L plates on both the front and back of the car. She clipped a kerb on the way back, so the police pulled us
I’m expecting to receive some paperwork for driving with no licence and no insurance. I did have a licence but it expired because I forgot to renew it after ten years. It was only a few months
over. They spoke to me and said they could smell alco- hol so they breathalysed me. Now they are accusing me of being in charge of the vehicle, even though I wasn’t driving and I was never going to drive. Can they do this? I have court coming up in a few days and I need to know what plea to enter.
A
If you are supervising a learner driver then you will be “in charge” of the vehicle. Being in charge does not necessarily mean that you were driving, it means that you have custody and control of
the vehicle. Even though you had no intention of driving by virtue of being the supervisor, the court would auto- matically consider that it was likely you could have as- sumed control of the car at any point. There is a big difference between likelihood and intent.
For being drunk in charge of a car you can receive either ten penalty points or up to a 12-month disqualification, perhaps even longer with community orders for very high readings. I would like to know more about the read- ing, how many penalty points you have on your licence and about the offence itself so that I can give more ac- curate advice and what you should be expecting at court.
If you plead guilty at your court hearing it is likely you will be sentenced the same day, and we could present mitigation to try to avoid a lengthy ban.
If you plead not guilty the case would be adjourned to a later date for trial and we could look at defending you – but it doesn’t look good. You accept you were super- vising and so were “in charge” and being a supervisor there was a likelihood of you assuming control.
Q
I just received a court date for “driving whilst not in proper control of a vehicle”. It’s giving me 21 days to plead not guilty or guilty. I have been ac- cused of driving with a misted windscreen. It
was winter, I got in my car and my windscreen was slightly frosty. I was on my way to pick up the first fare of the day when I was stopped. It really didn’t make much of a difference, I had the heating on and by the time the officer pulled me over it was completely clear anyway. Is this really an offence? I had full control of the vehicle so I don’t know what they are accusing me of. Can I fight this and what should I do?
A
The full wording of the offence is “driving whilst not in proper control of a vehicle or without hav- ing full view of the traffic ahead”. It is that second part that they will be accusing you of – not having
full view of the traffic ahead. AUGUST 2020
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