It is never a good idea to ignore a notice of intended prosecution and request for driver details in relation to a speeding or other motoring offence.
Before 2007, the penalty for failure to provide details was 3 points. This meant that if your vehicle had been caught travelling on a fixed camera travelling say, 100mph in a 60mph limit the reality at that time was that the consequences of responding to the form were often a lot more severe than simply ignoring it. The penalty for failure to respond to a request for the identity of the driver was then increased to 6 points in 2007 which means that there really is very little to be said for not co-operating with the police if your vehicle has been caught speeding.
Here at Motoring Offence Lawyers Ltd we are still receiving enquiries from some people who think it is a good idea to provide false information to the police. As someone who has represented people suspected of perverting the course of justice (albeit successfully) I can tell you it is not worth spending several hours at a police station being interviewed just for the sake of 3 penalty points.
Another common mistake people make is to assume that they are entitled to see the photographic evidence of the alleged offence and that if it does not clearly show that they were driving that they are somehow in the clear. The fact that the evidence may not be clear does not mean that you do not have to identify the driver. The police will in most cases still MISSING WORD for failure to furnish information. If the driver has not been identified and the vehicle is being kept by the person accused of the offence then there is a defence to the charge if the person can establish that he/she “did not know and could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained who the driver of the vehicle was.” s172 (4) Road Traffic Act 1988
Anyone who advises a quick fix guarantee of preventing a Court summons from being sent is probably not telling the truth. There is no quick fix! There are a number of bogus companies who sell what they describe as “guaranteed get off letters.” The people who sell these letters are not lawyers and judging from the content of the letters they peddle, have very little knowledge or experience of motoring law. Unfortunately, I am still receiving enquiries from people who have used these standard letters believing that if they send them to the police, their motoring offence problem will magically disappear. I am becoming used to reading them so I would imagine that the police and Courts are too!
Finally, the golden rule , always take legal advice from Motoring Offence Lawyer (s) (Ltd!)
