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  • Speeding and court summons – advice needed
  • rocco
    Full Member

    Firstly I am not trying to get out of paying, I hold my hands up to speeding.

    Today I received a court summons for a speeding offence in July 2016. According to the summons I have failed to give the information regarding who was driving at the time of the offence.

    The car being driven is a lease car through my employer and this is the first contact I have received. I am not disputing the fact I was speeding as I believed at the time I had been and was waiting for the letter to arrive, to which nothing did.

    We moved house just after signing up to the lease car, but before collecting, signed up in Nov 2015 and collected March 2016 and changed my address at work, however the fleet services department have my old address on file. Naively I assumed filing a change form would update everything but clearly it hasn’t.

    So my question is, am I better to just phone and pay the fine, take the punishment and learn from it or attend Magistrates court, declare I was speeding but have received no correspondence from lease company/employer until letter today and see if the fine can be reduced?

    My biggest question is how has no letter arrived at home address until the one today?

    Cougar
    Full Member

    I think my first port of call would be to the lease company to get an accurate description of events.

    The car being driven is a lease car through my employer

    When I had one a while back, the lease company contacted my employer (with a bonus “admin charge”) rather than come directly to me. Which makes sense, the car is leased to the company, not to me personally.

    sbob
    Free Member

    Six points for s.172.
    I’d be getting in contact with a view to coughing to the speeding to get the failure to notify dropped; it’s not unusual.

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    rocco
    Full Member

    Is that contact with the courts on the summons date or beforehand?

    binners
    Full Member

    Get in touch with the courts. As I found out, once it goes to court for anything other than the standard speeding offence, even if you hold your hands up, they tend to go for BIG fines, and more points.

    My experience: I got a standard SP30 (38mph – naughty me), paid the fine but couldn’t find the paper part of my driving licence. So I ordered a replacement from the DVLA, but it wasn’t delivered within the 28 days limit (it had been delivered to the wrong address – a neighbour who was away on holiday), so it has to go to court apaprently.

    Despite me having paid the fine already, and keeping them informed what was going on, via email at all times, they still slapped me with 4 points and a £530 fine + costs! The ****s!! 😯

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    If they’ve summonsed you for a speeding offence I’m not sure how they can also do you for failing to ID the driver.

    rocco
    Full Member

    The summons is for failing to provide info. The original offence was speeding.

    I’m going to give the courts a ring and see if they can drop the info fine and I just take pay for the original offence. If not then I will pay and take it as a costly mistake in making sure addresses are up to date

    binners
    Full Member

    If I remember rightly, they can’t drop a charge once the summons has been issued. it has to go to court.

    Hope they go easier on you than they went on me.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    Problem is they are out of time to prosecute you for the speeding. But equally, they can’t convict you of failing to identify the driver if you’ve never been asked to do so. It’s not your responsibility to notify everyone in your workplace of your new address – if you’ve told HR then that seems reasonable to me. Pepipoo would be a good place to seek advice.

    epicsteve
    Free Member

    My understanding of the way the process works with lease cars is:
    1) The police contact the registered owner (the leasing company) to ask who was driving the car.
    2) The lease company would grass you up and provide name and address to the police
    3) The police would then ask you to confirm you were the driver.

    I’m assuming it’s not responding to point 3 that is what the prosecution is for as you have 28 days to respond before non-response becomes and offence.

    Now as the owner of the vehicle I understand the leasing company would have a legal requirement to notify of any change in their address to the DVLA, however I’m not sure if there is any legal punishment for not keeping your address up to date. If so then the argument that the reason for non-response is that the police sent the request to the wrong address should be a reasonable one I’d have thought. Not sure if they use your DVLA record to find your current address – if so there might be an issue if you hadn’t notified them of a change of address I suppose.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    If the lease company are the RK then there’s probably some requirement in them to provide correct addresses to DVLA, but I don’t think there is any obligation on the OP. You could argue that the lease company have committed the offence by failing to provide the name and address of the driver, as they haven’t provided the latter.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    Do you have a solid paper trail of the events you describe? If so do you have any legal cover or will work help out?

    Answer c
    Get a proper legal opinion based on the evidence you have that you can present in court.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    what he says

    You have not failed to notify as you were not asked as they sent it to the wrong address and they know this as they have now sent it to the right address

    I dont think you can be done for not being able to answer a letter sent to a place where you do not live or we are all in trouble.

    I assume if DVLA had the new address on licence and you changed it when you move it will enhance your claim

    IANAL

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    IANAL either but I’m also on the side of if you have the paper trail of you informing your HR dept, and then they fail to update the lease company then you can’t really be responsible for not answering a letter you never got.

    That said; does the lease co hold the driver’s details on file or is the paper trail that they get the nip, pass the details on to the company they lease it to (I assume your employer), who in turn would then have to pass it to you – in which case why wouldn’t that happen? You say above you told HR but HR never told the Fleet Manager….. can you get that in writing so that you can at least show (apologetically) where the linkage broke?

    All told; can i ride your bikes while Mr Bigg is riding you in the showers?

    P-Jay
    Free Member

    Speak to the court, they can be suspiciously good at common sense sometimes – it seems odd that the first letter they ever send you it a summons for not giving information?

    I assume everything else went to your old address? That’s a fairly easy out to me.

    I’d play straight as an arrow in regards to the speeding though, they might let the non discloser slide, but if they couple that with a defendant trying to bob and weave the speeding charge they’ll brutalise you.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    That said; does the lease co hold the driver’s details on file or is the paper trail that they get the nip, pass the details on to the company they lease it to (I assume your employer), who in turn would then have to pass it to you – in which case why wouldn’t that happen?

    Rather than one S172 requirement going on to each person in the chain, each one should go back to the police hen a new one gets sent out to the name on the one that’s just gone back, and so and and so on.

    But also this…

    You have not failed to notify as you were not asked as they sent it to the wrong address and they know this as they have now sent it to the right address

    Cougar
    Full Member

    I’m going to give the courts a ring

    I think you need to ask to speak to the Clerk to the Justices. But as I said, get an audit trail first.

    does the lease co hold the driver’s details on file or is the paper trail that they get the nip, pass the details on to the company they lease it to (I assume your employer), who in turn would then have to pass it to you – in which case why wouldn’t that happen?

    This is where I was going earlier. If it’s anything like our place, the lease company have no concept of who the car is assigned to, they lease to my employer. Even if they did, they would still be unable to identify the driver.

    wwpaddler
    Free Member

    I’d suggest going to pepipoo. They’ll be able to give the best advice.

    As I understand it you have to do the deal to drop the S172 to speeding in the court building on the day of your court case but not actually when you’re in your court. Quite how / if this will work if they’re out of time to prosecute you for speeding I’m not sure. Whatever happens you really don’t want an S172 conviction as insurers really don’t like it.

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    On the speeding, it’s a 14 day limit they have to notify intention to prosecute, however they have to notify the registered keeper, not the driver. That would have been the lease company and they passed it on and as you say it’s probably gone to the wrong address. So it then comes under failing to respond and that’s the summons.

    Sounds like a pure mistake and not your fault you didn’t receive the notice. Argue that and in my opinion the whole thing should be thrown out. I wouldn’t pay the fine until it’s cleared up and whether they decide to still fine you for the original speeding offence. Given this is the first you’ve heard of it, the fine should stand as it was at the time.

    Could be you have to go to the summons though to argue the case though.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    There’s a 6 month time limit for the speeding offence, which has passed, so the OP can’t be prosecuted for that now.

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