“Increase in penalty points for failing to furnish information about the driver”
Buried deep in the new Road Safety Act 2006 - all 63 sections, 5 schedules and 135 pages of it - is a short, almost imperceptible 4-line section, section 29, which amends the existing 'speed camera' law and which will have potentially far-reaching implications for owners of vehicles who fail to comply with the statutory requirement to provide information concerning the identity of a driver when an offence has been committed and caught on camera.
The law itself is not new - but the doubling overnight of the consequences of breaching it is! Until this amendment, which came into force in September 2007, the number of penalty points imposed in a case where the registered keeper of a vehicle failed to provide information was 3. The new law now doubles the penalty points to 6, effectively overnight. There is no change in the likely financial penalty to be imposed but, for most motorists, it is, and always has been, the points that matter. Accumulate 12 penalty points and your licence, unless your lawyer can argue 'exceptional hardship' for you, is at risk - a 6 month disqualification will follow.
Until this change, motorists who, whether by accident or design, failed to respond to the request for information (strict time limits apply, both for the police and the registered keeper of the offending vehicle) would sometimes take 3 penalty points 'on the chin', reasoning that, at that level, the penalty is no worse than the penalty for the motoring offence itself (typically, speeding or a traffic light offence) and could sometimes, in the case of seriously excessive speed, be substantially more lenient and that, on that basis, the system provided no incentive to co-operate.
Whether that was a justifiable approach or not is now academic - the change of law means that if you deliberately, or by inadvertence or misunderstanding, commit TWO of these offences within a three year period, your licence is at risk. The 'old' law, itself characterised as draconian by civil libertarians, not to mention the motorists' lobby groups, now seems almost liberal by comparison.
It is (literally!) twice as important now that you seek expert advice - don't be caught out by a failure to understand the law, the time limits, the availability of a statutory defence, or by a lack of awareness of other entirely legitimate challenges to the speed camera procedure.
For further information on all motoring offences please contact either Peter Grogan or Isaac Mirza on 0845 402 0001.
