....KNOW YOUR RIGHTS... A
Under S1 Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, the po- lice are required to warn you within 14 days of the commission of an offence that the question of prosecuting you for some one or other of the of-
fences would be taken into consideration. If the police have not stopped you at the time and an accident hasn’t occurred that you are aware of, the police must serve a Notice on the registered keeper of the vehicle within 14 days. If S1 is not complied with, you cannot be convicted of the original offence. Groome v Driscoll [1969] con- firms that the Notice must be served so that it can rea- sonably be received within 14 days. The key however is that the 14 day period only applies to the registered keeper. If the vehicle is a hire/lease car or someone else is the registered keeper, then the require- ment is only to serve the Notice upon him or her within 14 days. This is the first thing you need to check. If how- ever you are named on the V5 document then you need to complete the Notice confirming you were the driver and when the police try to offer a conditional offer, or prosecute you, you will have a S1 argument.
Q A
I was driving to my friend’s house a week ago and as I was driving along, my vehicle clipped the kerb. I didn’t think anything of it at the time as it was a really minor incident and I
hadn’t hit anything but further down the road, the police stopped me and they told me my tyre was de- fective. They gave me a fixed penalty for driving with a defective tyre. I have three points already. What do I do, as I genuinely didn’t know that the tyre was de- fective?
Did clipping the kerb cause the defect with the tyre? If so, you have a potential S48 argument. This means that if you can show you had no rea- sonable cause to believe the tyre was defective
then the Court won’t impose any points against you. You will however need to take the matter to Court to put this argument forward. If the defect was because you clipped the kerb, you would have a strong case to show it was reasonable for you not to know about the defect prior to driving. The burden will be on you on the balance of probabilities to show you didn’t know. We have had good successes with these types of arguments recently and can cer- tainly help if you wish to challenge the points.
JULY 2013 PHTM Q A
I work as a private hire driver. Two months ago I was carrying a woman and her young daugh- ter. I think she was about two. I had a car seat fitted in the vehicle for infants and when they
got into the car, I made sure her daughter was strapped into the seat. As I was driving along, the young girl started crying. I ignored what was going on and carried on driving. The police then stopped me and said I was driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition, as the young daughter was riding in the backseat on her mother’s lap. I had no idea the woman had taken her daughter out of the seat until the police informed me. I have now been summonsed to Court and am really worried.
The offence will be under S40A Road Traffic Act 1988. This states that “a person is guilty of an offence if he uses a motor vehicle on a road when….(c) the number of passengers carried by
it, or the manner in which they are carried…. Is such that the use of the motor vehicle involves a danger of injury to any person”. Unfortunately it is a strict liability offence, which means intent or knowledge will not come into it. You will however have a Special Reasons argument. You will have to show on the balance of probabilities that you were not aware the child was not in the car seat and that it was reasonable for you not to know. The court will consider whether you should have looked in your rear view mirror and saw what was happening. If how- ever they find in your favour, no points will be imposed against you. We have over a 73 per cent success rate with Special Reasons being successful.
This impartial advice has been provided by Patterson Law Solicitors - specialist motoring of- fence solicitors for the taxi industry.
Any reader who mentions Private Hire and Taxi Monthly newspaper when engaging Patterson Law will be entitled to a discount of ten per cent on their legal fees.
Patterson Law
www.pattersonlaw.co.uk 01626 359800
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