ADUK Archive

TheInsanity1234 wrote:

hir wrote:
There are street lights for the entire length of road until the NSL signs. The street lights certainly seem to comply with the ... "no more than 200 yards apart" criteria. This means that the road is 30mph by default unless signs indicate otherwise, which they don't.

I've been along it, and there are only clusters of street lights every now and then, and quite a few of them are hidden by the trees so there's not much chance of spotting them in daylight.

I'm puzzled by this posting. You purposely drove this road with the intention of ascertaining the presence of street lighting. You came to the incorrect conclusion that... there are only clusters of street lights every now and then, and quite a few of them are hidden by the trees so there's not much chance of spotting them in daylight. If I had come to the same conclusion as you have I would be somewhat concerned about my powers of observation and ability to gather information about the road ahead.

PeterE wrote:the current regulations strongly discourage this.

Indeed, they prohibit this.

7db wrote:

PeterE wrote:the current regulations strongly discourage this.

Indeed, they prohibit this.

Well, you have to get special authorisation from the DfT.

Something I will, perhaps unkindly, chime in with is that you will do much better in driving, and in particular advanced driving, if you ditch the 'yes, but...' line of thinking.

Yes, but the streetlights were hard to see...
Yes, but there weren't any signs...
Yes, but cameras should be more visible...
Yes, but there was noone to follow...
...
Yes, but I like doing it the way I always have...
Yes, but nothing bad has happened doing it this way...
Yes, but he shouldn't have stopped so suddenly...

Your scenario is what it is - maybe not perfect, but that's the world for you, and it's only so malleable. I could be writing the exact same thing about an accident you might have had, so it's fortunate that it's merely someone else's points.

You can't deny that more could have been done to avoid the fine, and now that it has happened, lessons can be learnt. Hopefully that's what brings you to ADUK.

It is not as if he wandered a little bit above the speed limit he was well over by more than 50% which in my book is a deliberate act to exceed the speed limit, and should feel lucky that he has been offered a conditional offer of a EFPN and not sent straight to court.
Without banging on about the implications if involved in an incident then things might turn out way way beyond his control such as a prison sentence at that speed, so,to coin a phrase if you cant do the time then don't do the crime.

To be fair to Insanity's Dad, I don't think it was a deliberately rebellious act, just an invalid assumption. Also he hasn't received his NIP yet (and in fact may be getting quite close to the deadline after which he can contest it on the grounds that it wasn't sent out quickly enough), so we don't know what his (offered) penalty is, yet.

* Unless it was issued verbally by the officer in which case he should have either issued a Fixed Penalty Notice on the spot or warned Dad of an intended prosecution or given him a "producer" - to produce his driving licence at a Police Station in the next 7 days if he didn't have it with him. The OP didn''t say which course the officer took, so it's hard to guess what will happen next.

Stephen wrote:It is not as if he wandered a little bit above the speed limit he was well over by more than 50% which in my book is a deliberate act to exceed the speed limit

Not if you don't know what the speed limit is.

7db wrote:

PeterE wrote:the current regulations strongly discourage this.

Indeed, they prohibit this.

I was suggesting 30 roundels painted on the road...is that illegal? (I know 30 repeater signs are).

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:To be fair to Insanity's Dad, I don't think it was a deliberately rebellious act, just an invalid assumption. Also he hasn't received his NIP yet (and in fact may be getting quite close to the deadline after which he can contest it on the grounds that it wasn't sent out quickly enough), so we don't know what his (offered) penalty is, yet.

* Unless it was issued verbally by the officer in which case he should have either issued a Fixed Penalty Notice on the spot or warned Dad of an intended prosecution or given him a "producer" - to produce his driving licence at a Police Station in the next 7 days if he didn't have it with him. The OP didn''t say which course the officer took, so it's hard to guess what will happen next.

He was stopped by the police officer on the 13th of April, and I've found on the internet that

The police must serve an NIP within 14 days of the alleged speeding offence, but there are some circumstances in which the notice will still stand even if it's served later than this, for example:

if extra time is needed for the police to act with 'reasonable diligence' to find out who the registered keeper is and how to contact them; or
if the delay was the driver’s fault, for example because they have not told the DVLA of a recent change of address.

The officer told my dad that he would receive a letter with more detail about what would happen, but I'm wondering if the officer decided not to bother and just give him a verbal warning because he had a clean license for the last 20 odd years he's been driving, and this is the first time anything like this has happened.

Stephen wrote:It is not as if he wandered a little bit above the speed limit he was well over by more than 50% which in my book is a deliberate act to exceed the speed limit, and should feel lucky that he has been offered a conditional offer of a EFPN and not sent straight to court.
Without banging on about the implications if involved in an incident then things might turn out way way beyond his control such as a prison sentence at that speed, so,to coin a phrase if you cant do the time then don't do the crime.

Well, again, can I point out that he genuinely didn't know what the limit was and he was shocked when he was pulled over and then told that he was doing nearly 50 in a 30 zone.
Can I just ask, if you didn't know that what you were doing was wrong, would you want to be sent to prison as a punishment?

Ignorance isn't a defence in English law. It might be a mitigation.

TheInsanity1234 wrote:1: The law states that speed cameras must be clearly visible,

Not it doesn't. There used to be guidlines to that effect but guidlines are not law, and in any event they only applied to safety camera partnerships not the police.

so presumably a policeman holding a radar gun in an unmarked car could be an infringement of our rights?

No more that a policeman hiding behind a hedge to catch a housebreaker is infringing their rights.

The police have a duty to catch people committing criminal offences, and covert activity is an accepted part of policework.

As far as the law is concerned speeding is a criminal offence no different from any.

there are absolutely no speed limit repeater signs whatsoever, despite the whole road seeming that of a 50/NSL road. For short stretches, there are street lights, and you do go through a cluster of small houses with frontages on the road, so that is reasonable, and my dad actually slowed down through that, but after that point, there is no clue that the speed limit is 30.

If at the point the alleged speeding was detected there were no street lights and no repeaters then the statutory defense and bar to conviction for speeding set out in Section 85 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 as amended may apply. He may wish to speak to a solicitor who specialises in road traffic law on this point.

If there were streetlights at that point then he is unlikely to have defense.

Can you post a GSV of the section where he was detected?

The other point that has to be mentioned is that when my dad went along the road, apparently he did not catch up to any cars on the road, and there were none in sight, so he couldn't have realised his mistake because there wasn't anyone else around to copy from.

Irrelevant. The responsibility for the vehicle rests with the driver and the driver alone, to suggest that he was not exercising that responsibility is to admit to driving without due care and attention. He does not want to take an argument like this in front of a court.

I've found on the internet that

The police must serve an NIP within 14 days of the alleged speeding offence, but there are some circumstances in which the notice will still stand even if it's served later than this, for example:

if extra time is needed for the police to act with 'reasonable diligence' to find out who the registered keeper is and how to contact them; or
if the delay was the driver’s fault, for example because they have not told the DVLA of a recent change of address.

This advice is only applicable where the driver is not stopped and identified at the time of the incident. As he was stopped at the time it does not apply to his case as he will have been administered a verbal NOIP at the roadside.

(So far, we have not received a NoIP even though it's been at least 3 weeks since my dad was caught speeding.)

No NoIP will be sent. Next steps will be to receive a Conditional Offer of Fixed Penalty or a summons. A summons can take many months to arrive (they have 6 months to submit it to court and not unheard of for it to be several weeks after than for it to be served), COFP normally arrive within a few weeks.

Based on the speed the most likely outcome is a COFP unless he already has 9 or more point in his license in which case he can expect a summons.

TheInsanity1234 wrote:...The officer told my dad that he would receive a letter with more detail about what would happen, ...

This suggests the officer intended to report him. Usually he would ask your dad to sign a slip of paper confirming this. If your dad was warned orally there is no need for a postal NIP and no time limit on sending a conditional offer.

TheInsanity1234 wrote:...
Can I just ask, if you didn't know that what you were doing was wrong, would you want to be sent to prison as a punishment?

Speeding is not an offence for which you can be sent to prison, which helps to justify the lack of a requirement to prove a guilty mind.

Your dad made a mistake which was easy to make in the circumstances. At least you have the benefit of being able to learn from someone else's mistake.

I've just had a quick look at the legislation and it appears that the HA may derestrict the road and make an Order for a 30 mph speed limit which would, accordingly, need repeaters.

MGF wrote:I've just had a quick look at the legislation and it appears that the HA may derestrict the road and make an Order for a 30 mph speed limit which would, accordingly, need repeaters.

Can you clarify this, please? The road has street lights, is therefore 30mph by default, therefore no repeaters.

It's a "restricted road" - defined as one with streetlights (in much fancier language) less than 200 yards apart. Repeaters are not to be placed on restricted roads. I'm not sure how they de-restrict it, but obviously they have some procedure they can go through.