In August I got pulled over on the A2 for driving in excess of the posted speed limit. I was cautioned at the time and told I would be receiving a £100 FPN and 3 points. I was shown a radar from the police car dashcam on the officer’s phone showing 98mph. There were no aggravating factors (conditions clear, no pillion etc)
This month (well within the permitted time frame) I received a SJP notice stating that this speed was in excess of FPN and that I had the option of pleeding guilty by post or attending court in person. I’ve done a google, and guidance is 4-6 points and a £1000 capped fine.
I’ve gone to plead online, and I’ve noticed I have been charged with
On 09/08/2024 at Southfleet, Dartford in the County of Kent drove a motor vehicle, namely SUZUKI(M/CYCLES) index ****, on a motorway, namely A2, London bound, Southfleet, Dartford, at a speed exceeding 70 miles per hour
Contrary to regulation 3 of the Motorways Traffic (Speed Limit) Regulations 1974, section 17(4) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 and Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.
Now what concerns me about this, is that this was not a motorway and I don’t want to receive a £2500 fine if I am only guilty of the £1000 fine. Is this the normal wording of such a charge on a national speed limit dual carriageway? My expectation is it is not. I’m not particularly looking to get off scott free here, as far as I’m concerned I should just take my medicine, but I don’t want to be done for a higher offense (not that I necessarily understand why a motorway would be 2.5x worse) - however obviously I am no longer young and naive enough not to take luck when it comes my way, so if I should speak to a lawyer about investigating wrong charges I don’t see why I shouldn’t do that
Thanks in advance for any considered responses here, I have been on a couple of forums browsing about this and I know this can bring up strong opinions
Do speak to the lawyers. You could have sent a letter with your plea and included mitigating factors if there are any. You can still do that if you appeal.
My friend was processed by the Surrey police for driving at 92 mph on a 70 mph A road. Each police force is different but he received a £100 FPN and 3 points and considers himself lucky.
You may not be so lucky being at the upper end of the scale so definitely speak to the lawyers and draft that letter.
Firstly lets get one thing straight. You have not been charged, you have been reported for summons. You are only charged if you are arrested and then bailed to appear before the court.
That said, The A2 is as you say not a Motorway, it is classed as a trunk road and therefore you should have been reported under Section 89 Road Traffic Regulations Act 1984, not regs you have been reported under namely regulation 3 of the Motorways Traffic (Speed Limit) Regulations 1974, section 17(4) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 and Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.
You have a good case to question why you have been reported under the wrong act and section, and on that basis I would suggest that you have a good case to justify speaking to a specialist traffic law defence solicitor, because given what I have said, there is a good case (based on my 45 years as a traffic cop and specialist traffic law investigator) to have the case dismissed.
Obviously I cannot guarantee it being dismissed as I have not seen all the case papers, but I think you are in with a good shout.
Do you have legal expenses cover on your road insurance? This may give you free access to legal representation, or if you belong to the AA, RAC or one of the other breakdown firms, they also sometimes cover legal advice and representation.
Thank you both for taking the time to reply to this; I was able to get a lawyer from Nick Freeman solicitors on the phone today, and he was very generous with his time
He was pretty quick and confident that it would be quite unlikely for the case to be dismissed due to an administrative error in the charges, with the CPS reserving the right to ammend the charges. I ran the risk-reward of their £750+vat consultation fee (plus any follow up representation) against the likelihood of the points being reduced to say 4 in contesting the video evidence, with the bike changing speed at a faster rate than the following car; I optimistically felt all along that my speed did peak at less than the amount I was shown, and was actually only above a speed likely of prosecution for a very short amount of time as I closed the gap to the traffic ahead.
The lawyer and I seemed to be in agreement that a guilty plea, using the mitigation section to request the charges be ammended to be a non motorway was the best course of action. So I have done that
I will update with an outcome when I get it! Could do with it sooner than later as car insurance is up for renewal January 12th, and are annual background screening at work starts on 6th January – hopefully they will not be funny about it, but it is a criminal charge so who knows (FCA regulated, not super secret spy work)
The FCA check will be fine. They recognise speeding doesn’t mean someone’s dishonest which is their biggest concern.
Side note - a driving instructor mate told me that many traffic enforcement vans now have revolving cameras on their roofs so they can take photos of either side of the road and of the front and back of your vehicle. I think the direction of travel is clear (pun intended), keep it under 75 mph from now on.
Who told you it is a criminal charge? It is not a criminal charge and you have not been charged, it is a (relatively minor traffic offence in the grand scheme of things) .
Like I said, if you were charged you would have been arrested and bailed to appear before the court on a given date.
If it takes longer than the 12th of January for your court appearance to take place it will only affect you from a business perspective if you are disqualified, otherwise it will simply come up at your next licence check, unless your firm has strict rules about the number of points you are allowed to have, but of course you should declare the outcome to your bosses anyway if you are reliant on your licence for work.
I will keep my opinion to myself of the law firm you have gone to, but suffice to say, they have still issued you with the wrong summons I have seen many a case dropped because of the wrong wording for the wrong offence.
In terms of charges and disclosure I am not sure that is correct; I’ve been charged as page 2 of the SJP is titled Charge Sheet and states “you have been charged with the following offences” and then on the offence side, it’s a summary offence, which is a criminal offence so I do need to disclose it to compliance and annual background screening but as long as I don’t attempt to hide it then this shouldn’t be an issue provided they don’t want to get rid of me anyway!
The 12th of January was actually for my insurance (SDPC), I don’t drive for business - work needs to know from the criminal rather than the points aspect. IIRC the insurance form asks about pending convictions, and if that’s anything like having to go back and forth when an accident is still open I’d prefer it to be done and dusted.
I do appreciate that there may have been a chance the case had been dropped, and you may well be right but it was difficult to put a percentage on and so there’s the financial risk reward which was a little uncertain on which side looked better, and then there was the stress aspect which was also a little hard to balance. On the one hand, pleading guilty got it done so I could move on and stress about all the other things there is to stress about, on the other I could conceivably be banned next time but to good approximation I can control that
I provisionally put in the date I was pulled as my conviction date for a 6pt SP30 and quotes were honestly very reasonable! I expected my car insurance to go back up to the thousands but it’s not bad at all. The cheapest did come out as off brand insurers, with the only one I recognised in the top 5 being Aviva.
After 45 years of law enforcement and traffic law investigation and teaching traffic law I clearly and obviously have no idea or understand the difference between a summary offence and a criminal offence.
So you are telling me you are going to end up with a criminal record are you?
That will be a first for what is at the end of the day a minor traffic offence!
No, not in the sense that it will be uploaded to the Police National Computer. With a few exceptions, a criminal offense that doesn’t result in a possible prison sentence is a non-recordable offense. It stays on the local police database. However it must be disclosed legally until it is spent, and contractually questions we are typically asked at work are written of the form “have you ever been…” and there is no scenario where it would be a good idea to lie on these
The only database (other than the PNC) is the DVLA database. There is no local database for regular traffic offences other than for disqualified drivers.
Yes you are required to disclose it to your insurers on renewal of your policy (some do ask if there are any offences pending) in the same way you are required to disclose any crashes you have been involved in, or if you are disqualified, you need to notify your insurers straight away.
But from a work perspective most of those types of questions relate to a criminal case not road traffic, so up to you if you decide to declare, but do not confuse a criminal case with a straightforward road traffic speeding case, they are 2 separate issues.
