According to the Telegraph around 58,000 motorists a week are caught speeding by safety camera partnerships. If they are not stopped by the police at the time of the incident then they should receive an Notice of Intended Prosecution within 14 days of the date of alleged offence.
In most cases they are fined £60 and receive three points on their licence.
However we are about to see a series of postal strikes therefore possibly thousands of these tickets could become invalid due to the ate service of the NIP.
The systems for issuing such letters tend to be highly automated and you can normally expect that a letter will have been generated and is en route to the home of the registered keeper VERY soon after the offence. When visiting the GATSO factory a few years ago they told me that they had a system in place that recognised the number plate, interrogated the DVLA computer and printed an NIP within seconds.
However during this strike it just might be possible that the highly efficient system will have a major hiccup. Normally the notice is deemed to have arrived on the second working day. But this is not practical during a postal strike.
So what should you do?
Keep a diary of events and note when you saw the Flash of a camera or saw the Talivan on an overbridge. Keep a note of when the NIP arrived at your home and details of any witnesses to that delivery.
If you receive an NIP keep the envelope it came in.
If you have any witnesses who saw the document arrive tell them to note this in a diary or on a piece of paper that can later be referred to in court if required.
What NOT TO DO is just to ignore the notice and hope that it will go away. See a specialist solicitor and take some advice. We provide free online case consultations so please just drop us an e mail and we will let you know where we reckon you stand on this issue.
The 14 day time bar issue is not a simple one and like many such areas of law, matters will depend on what has been set as precedent by the High court in the past.
If you ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen you will open yourself to prosecution under s172 Road Traffic Act and this renders you liable to 6pp and even a discretionary disqualification in some instances.
Do not be tempted to lie about the date of receipt either or you could end up in really hot water called “Attempting to pervert the course of justice.” First offenders have gone to jail for this offence so do not underestimate the gravity of the matter
When in doubt just pick up the phone to us or go online and send us an e mail regarding your own situation