Speeding Offence Solicitors

Requirements for eligibility are:

• You have admitted to being the driver of the vehicle at the time of the alleged offence and returned the documentation within the 28 day period calculated from the date the notice was sent to you.
• No more than 12 weeks have elapsed since the date of the alleged offence.
• There were no further offences committed at the time of the alleged offence.
• You have not attended a speed awareness course within the 3 years prior to the current offence.
• You were driving at a speed which qualifies.

The notice of intended prosecution is a crucial legal document that starts the prosecution process. Failing to respond properly to a notice of intended prosecution can lead to additional charges and complications.

Unless you were stopped at the time or involved in an accident, the police must send a Notice of Intended Prosecution to the registered keeper or driver so that it arrives within 14 days.

The Notice of Intended Prosecution is usually combined with a request for driver information. If you do not respond to the request, you are likely to be convicted of an offence of failing to give driver details. That offence carries 6 points or a discretionary disqualification.

The Police cannot disqualify you for speeding. Only courts can impose driving disqualifications.

The police have no power to impose a driving disqualification for any offence. The police can only offer fixed penalties which carry points and a fine depending on the offence.

You do not have to accept fixed penalties if you do not accept the offence. 

No, unfortunately, once a Single Justice Procedure Notice has been issued for speeding it can’t be changed back to a Fixed Penalty Notice.

You may be able to plead guilty without attending court. If there’s a good reason why you missed the Fixed Penalty Notice deadline, the court may decide to order that you pay the original fine and no additional prosecution costs.

These corroboration requirements do not apply to motorway speeding offences (overall speed limit on motorways) except those motorway speed limits relating to special classes of vehicles.

The corroborative witness must form the opinion that the vehicle is speeding at the same moment as the first witness. It means you can’t have two different witnesses forming a view as to speed when the vehicle is at two different places.

Corroboration can also be provided by the speedometer of a police vehicle, radar equipment, or Vascar or by the speed testing device being used. You can be convicted on the evidence of one police officer supported by evidence by him of the reading of a speedometer or other mechanical means, even if there is no evidence that the speedometer had been tested. The same principle applies to radar guns. This may not be the case if the speed alleged is only marginally over the limit.

Likelihood of success will depend on several factors, but given the technicalities involved, successful challenges are time-consuming, and therefore rarely cheap. You must think very carefully before embarking on a challenge, and at Pragma, we can talk you through the process so you can make an informed decision.

There’s no legal buffer zone for exceeding a speed limit. While some police forces may have internal policies about when to prosecute, officially, exceeding any speed limit by even 1mph is an offence. The National Police Chiefs’ Council suggests a guideline (not a rule) of ‘10% plus 2mph’ above the speed limit before enforcement, but this varies between forces.

Likelihood of success will depend on several factors, but given the technicalities involved, successful challenges are time-consuming, and therefore rarely cheap. You must think very carefully before embarking on a challenge, and at Pragma, we can talk you through the process so you can make an informed decision.