Other Motoring Offences.

 

Fail to identify driver.

 

Drivers will often get what is known as a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) – this is normally when a speed camera has flashed a car. At this stage the police do not know who is driving – so they send an NIP to the registered keeper of the vehicle and ask them to identify the driver.   This is a very complex subject and you may hear someone in the pub, or even a website that isn’t from a motoring lawyer telling you that you can avoid a speeding charge by not telling them who was driving.   Be very careful of taking advice from anyone other than a motoring lawyer on this subject.   If you get this wrong instead of maybe three points for speeding you will get six points for failing to identify the driver. Lie to the police about who was driving and you commit the offence of perverting the course of justice, which carries a prison sentence.   What if you aren’t sure who was driving? That is a defence but has to be handled very carefully by a specialist motoring lawyer.  

 

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Driving without insurance.

 

This is normally relatively straight forward. You either have insurance or you don’t. It is not a defence to say you thought you had insurance. The only defences to this offence are if you are an employee and using your employer’s vehicle and were told it was insured, or if you breach a condition of the insurance policy you may still technically be insured for this purpose.   However, there are also Special Reasons where, although you are guilty of driving without insurance, the Court are able to not issue any points on your license.   Do I need a motoring lawyer?   Yes. No insurance carries between 6-8 points so it is essential to keep the points to a minimum.   We can either attend Court or prepare a letter of mitigation. We have years of experience and know how to present a case in writing that will maximise the chance of the Court being lenient.  

 

Fail to stop and report.

 

These are actually two separate offences; failing to stop after an accident and failing to report after an accident. They are often charged together.   You are guilty of failing to stop if you have an accident and do not stop and give your details. It can get a little complicated because you do not have to be involved directly in the accident.   If you pull out of a road, for example, and someone swerves and hits a tree you still have to stop even though you suffered no damage or injury. It doesn’t matter whose fault the accident is. You still need to stop and exchange details.   The only exception is if you didn’t know there was an accident – pretty common sense really but common sense and the law don’t always go together!   As an example, one of our cases involved a lorry driver who was said to have reversed into a car parked behind and drove off. We were able to convince the Court that he wouldn’t have known there was an accident and therefore didn’t need to stop and exchange details.   If there is any injury caused as opposed to just damage you also need to report it to the police as soon as possible and in any event within 24 hours. This does not mean that you have 24 hours to report it, it means that you have to report as soon as possible.  

 

Driving Whilst Disqualified.

 

The courts take this sort of case very seriously and often send people to prison for it. There is very rarely a defence to this but we can help. We can build a case for you to make sure we put together the best possible mitigation for you to try and avoid a prison sentence.  

 

 

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