KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
In this month’s edition we feature more road traffic issues relevant to the trade supplied by Patterson Law. These are real questions asked by drivers who have found themselves in difficult situations. If you need any advice on motoring matters please email
e.patterson@
pattersonlaw.co.uk or for regular updates on road traffic law follow us on
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Q A
Yesterday I was stopped for driving without insur- ance. I’ve had the same car for eight years and have been insured with the same company. It’s al- ways automatically renewed. Last week I bought
a new car but forgot to change over the insurance. As soon as the police stopped me I arranged a new policy at the side of the road. But the officer told me there was nothing he could do and had to charge me. He told me to expect something in the post. What am I looking at?
You will likely receive a fixed penalty notice through the post. It will offer you six points and a £200 fine. If you accept it you must pay the fine and surrender your licence, and that will be the
end of the matter. The points will remain valid on your li- cence for three years from the date of the offence.
If you do not accept the fixed penalty it means the matter will proceed to court and you have the opportunity to plead guilty or not guilty.
We will be able to help you with this.
In the first instance I would like the opportunity to make representations to the police to try to persuade them to drop the case on the basis that there was no criminality on your part. It is clear that this was just an accident. You have a good history of insurance and clearly this was not an intention to avoid costs as you took out a new policy immediately. If we are successful in persuading the police to cancel the fixed penalty it means you wouldn’t receive any points or a fine.
But if we are unsuccessful we have to decide whether to take the matter to court as there are risks involved. If we won you would avoid points altogether. But if we lost, the court would not necessarily replicate the six points and £200 fine that you were offered at the fixed penalty stage. At court you could be at risk of an unlimited fine and up to eight penalty points.
At court you would have no choice but to enter a guilty plea – driving without insurance is a strict liability offence meaning that because you did not have insurance you are
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guilty by default. However, you may have a special rea- sons argument available. The court will find special rea- sons not to endorse points if they believe that there was a genuine misapprehension that you were insured, and that this was based on reasonable grounds.
It sounds like this was a genuine misapprehension, but the question for the court would be whether your misappre- hension was reasonable.
It does not sound like you were misled by anybody. I would want to discuss that in more detail with you though and find out whether the insurance company or car deal- ership told you that the insurance would continue to run, or whether your certificate was misleading, in which case it would make the argument stronger. But if it was a sim- ple oversight then the court may not find this reasonable. There is case law that suggests that you should familiarise yourself with the policy documents and what you are cov- ered for. Call us for free advice we can discuss this further and decide what to do.
Q
What would I be at risk of for dangerous driving? I’ve got this charge and I want to challenge it. My neighbour has always been causing me problems. As I was coming out of my driveway he was
standing in the road and refused to move. I edged my car towards him but he would not get out of the way. He started banging on my bonnet and I tried to drive around him but every time I moved he jumped in front of my car and was not letting me go. I’ve been having a dispute with him about my bins for ages. He’s always accusing me of leaving my bins outside his house and putting my rub- bish in his bin. It’s really pathetic. Then he started report- ing me to the council and to the police for noise complaints. I haven’t got the time for it. Now he’s saying that I drove at him. I didn’t drive at him, I was trying to drive around him to get to work and he kept on coming in front of me. He says I ran over his foot. I can’t remem- ber if I did, but if I did it was an accident.
A
Dangerous driving is a very serious offence that carries a minimum 12-month disqualification with an extended retest, as well as the possibility of community orders or even custody in the most se-
rious cases.
Very often dangerous driving is not dealt with in a Magis- trates’ Court. Most traffic offences are triable only in a Magistrates’ Court in front of a bench of Magistrates and Legal Adviser. But dangerous driving is triable either way, meaning that if the court deem it serious enough they will send it to the Crown Court for a trial by Judge and jury.
It is vital that you obtain expert legal representation. We can absolutely help you with this. In the first instance MARCH 2019
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