Road Traffic Act 1988 - are police obliged to contact you in a certain period?

I'll let

traffic

vehicle.

Oh right, admitting to failing to keep your vehicle under proper control....

gearbox. It

Of course you can, you were obviously aware of the hill that you were descending from the time you started to descend.

being

Because you had no defence, you would have been better off claiming that your brakes had partially failed whilst descending the hill.....

The system sucks. Momentarily go over the spped limit in the wrong place and cos you can afford to drive, wallop £60 fine and three points. There's morality!

Well either admit to speeding or admit to being unable to keep control of your vehicle, you don't get a NIP for *just* going over the speed limit, if your job realises on you keeping hold of your driving privileges then keep within the speed limit - after all the stated speed limit is the maximum speed and not the speed that one should drive at (it is not a minimum speed limit).

We used to have a tradition in this country that said that before someone was punished for committing an office, it had to be shown that they had indeed committed it.

Dreadful, old-fashioned out-of-date idea... punishing one person for another's misdeeds is far more modern.

To hell with morality, I suppose, what does that say about you? It appears you know you committed an offence so pay up and drive with more care next time>>

What it says about me personally since you ask is that I was surprised at the NIP because I'm normally a slow and careful driver - not the opposite. What getting caught has done is make me more careful still - the deterrent value which would be there to some extent with or without the fine. I believe in speed limits - I'm not a reckless driver at all. The road in ,Camden Rd, is a long straight downhill road, and as has been remarked the police get you in the easiest places for them, not necessarily the worst black spots. In Camden Rd at night with nobody about, going downhill and thinking of something else, going over 30 without thinking is not too difficult.

But the law is made for a purpose, and if the police themselves don't abide by the law, then that's their problem. In this case the deterrent value of the fine is, for a reason, within 14 days because: a) Instant deterrents work better than delayed ones b) If you committed another offence within e.g. the 2 months I've waited to know about it, you would not have had the deterrent of knowing about the first offence, which is not fair. Andy

The evidence shows that an offence has been committed.

Come off it, we are talking about family / private use here, not some transport manager who could have had anyone in the company driving the pool car - private owners are using a clause designed for fleet vehicle keepers as a means to evade the law.

nobody

Then you really should not be driving, just because you think there is no body about is no excuse for driving without due care and attention!

There's plenty of evidence for all kinds of offences having been committed. Who shall we charge for them? Whoever was nearest at the time?

The *evidence* needs to show not only that an offence was committed, but who committed it. Beyond any reasonable doubt. Not who should be assumed to have committed it. That's how things were once, and it seems to me to be a much better idea than the alternative. Clearly you think otherwise, so there's little point in discussing it.

No, I was replying to your assertion that the registered keeper should be held legally responsible for offences committed by its driver. Certainly a law could be passed to that effect, but that wouldn't make it right, just legal.

And no, it isn't reasonable that the keeper should remember or even know who drove a car at a particular time. In a family, the registered keeper is normally the payer of bills, while cars may be driven by family members at a time when the payer of bills is earning the money to do so. Certainly, he can ask his family who was driving at a particular time, but what he offers to the police can then hardly be considered evidence, can it?

Then you really should not be driving, just because you think there is no body about is no excuse for driving without due care and attention! >>

Jerry, does posting stuff like this without due care and attention mean that you really should not be thinking?

before

shown

committed,

driving

fleet

should

particular

considered

Ignorance is no defence, the keeper should know, it's that simple unless the keeper / driver is a low life scum-bag who is wants to avoid the law...

FFS were are talking about a family car here, not a company pool car, of course the family know who was using the car.

It's a legal loophole and you know it is.

The only one who is not thinking is you, by admitting that you were " going downhill and thinking of something else, going over 30 without thinking is not too difficult" you have just admitted to Driving Without Due Care and Attention, if you have been pulled up by the Police at the time and used that excuse they might well have booked you for DWC&A - by your own admission...

Why am I getting the impression Jerry is a policeman? Not that I have anything against the police, quite the contrary in fact.

Seems more like a policeman's helmet to me......

Well you are both very wrong, but no surprise there! :~(

I can see we're running short of rational arguments here...

Ignorance of the details of the the law is not a defence, ignorance of the facts *is* a disqualification from being a witness.

Yes, but the person required to make the legal statement is the keeper, not whoever used it. Can you not see this? The keeper could literally have been on the other side of the planet at the time. The keeper's belief/recollection of who was probably driving the car *is*

If that was the case, it would have been amended by now. The simple fact is that the authorities have chosen to use a method of pursuit of speeders which does not collect all the evidence required to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt. They then try to rely on hearsay 'evidence' to complete the case. The situation simply could not exist if the police were out there actually catching speeders.

They made the rules. Why do you think they should not have to comply with those rules themselves?

That's before we bring up the question of false number plates, which are apparently becoming more widespread. I wonder why?

Yes you are...

Well you are both very wrong, but no surprise there!>>

You seem to be talking about enforcement (and incidentally doing most of the moralising here as well as deciding right and wrong for others who clearly have fully functioning brains), while most of the rest of us are talking about the theory of the law itself and how it works in practice. If I'm going on to be a bit more subtle we could get into Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning (see

Level One: Pre-conventional Morality Stage 1: Punishment-Obedience Orientation Stage 2: Instrumental Relativist Orientation

Level Two:Conventional Morality Stage 3: Good Boy-Nice Girl Orientation Stage 4: Law and Order Orientation

Level Three:Post-Conventional Morality Stage 5: Social Contract Orientation Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principle Orientation

others

In this part of the thread I was commenting on you not being in proper control of your vehicle, by your own admission and on what you though my profession is.

As for the wider thread, I am commenting on the law, you and all the other appeasers are commenting on how people evade the law, there is no reason why the keeper of a vehicle should not know who has been using it, the fact that some people are suggesting that a family can't remember is plain daft - it comes down to not wanting to remember IMO.

A robotic response if ever I saw one. This chap MUST be a state serf of some sort. No free man would think in these terms.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Well that wasn't what the 'legal eagles' involved said.

There is no requirement for records to be kept of who is driving a private vehicle. If the registered owner *cannot* remember who was driving then that is the end of it. The registered owner is required to reveal who was driving but only if they *know* who was driving. There is no offence for 'not knowing'.