Top Tips for Basic Traffic Offences
“Yeah, but you know, I had no option, they were going to stab me, like they did my brother, I had to drive and deliver what they told me to”, the man charged with speeding and driving without insurance frantically explains without pausing for breath. A few minutes later, after speaking to the Court’s Legal Adviser, “Yeah, yeah, I did it you know, I didn’t know all my options, I will change my plea”, his story changes. Like many people walking through the court gates, wanting to fight till the last breath to prove their sacred innocence without understanding the elements of the law, this man came in with a story with the aim of trying to convince the court of his innocence. Sometimes it may be better to plead guilty than to go through trial to contest the charges.
Offences like driving without insurance and speeding are what are known as strict liability offences. What this means is that it does not matter whether you believed you had insurance when caught carrying out the offence or whether you thought you were within the speed limit, what matters is the fact only, that is, whether you were, in fact, speeding or driving without insurance.
But first, the legal part.
No insurance: Driving a motor vehicle without insurance is an offence under section 143 of the Road Traffic Act of 1988. The exceptions to this offence that could amount to a defense and lead to being found not guilty is if you can prove that the vehicle did not belong to you and was not in you possession as per a contract of hiring or of loan, or that you were using the vehicle in the course of you employment, AND that you neither knew nor had reason to believe that there was not in force in relation to the vehicle such a policy of insurance.
Speeding: It is an offence to drive on a road at a speed exceeding a limit imposed by law under section 89 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.
The penalty for no insurance is an unlimited amount of fine, 6-8 penalty points on your license or disqualification from driving between 6-12 months. The penalty to speeding offences, depending on the recorded speed, is between 3-6 points on the license or 7-56 days disqualification from driving and a 25% to 175% of your weekly income in fine.
Unless one of the exceptions given above for not having insurance applies, and the Crown Prosecution Services and the MIB have run checks to find out that there is, in fact, no insurance in relation to the car, then it is always advisable to plead guilty to avoid paying the extra costs and fines and penalty that would be imposed if the matter is contested in trial. When a defendant pleads guilty at the first possible opportunity, full credit for the guilty plea will be given when sentencing for the offence, thereby reducing the sentence by 1/3rd. If the defendant pleads guilty on the day of the trial, credit for guilty plea will still be given but may be reduced. If there are special reasons for committing this offence, then this can be done before moving on to sentencing, whereby the defendant will need to prove, with the appropriate evidence, to the Magistrates or Judge that they had mitigating reasons for committing this offence. One such mitigating reason that courts are seeing more and more of these days are when the defendant has been a victim of fraud by purchasing scam insurance. The Magistrates or Judge will look at whether reasonable background checks were carried out before buying the insurance, the amount of money paid, and other such circumstances that led to the purchase to ensure that the defendant did not act neglectfully. The leading authority for finding special reasons when scammed by fraudulent insurance companies is the case of Rennison vs Knowler 1947. To argue special reasons, the defendant must first plead guilty to the offence.
Similarly with speeding, unless you are able to challenge the recorded speed leading to the offence, which would involve paying a specialist to come to court, plead guilty. A defendant in a wheelchair admitted to breaking the speed limit and pleaded guilty to then argue special reasons. His reasons were that he did not have his medication on him as he had already used it earlier in the day and needed to speed up to get to his house to take the medication without which his medical condition meant that he could lose control over the vehicle. The Magistrates asked why he did not pull over and call the emergency services, to which he said that that would have been useless as ambulances do not carry to medication he needs, and he was scared of being alone by the side of a road with no help under the circumstances. Special reasons were found in this case, but a fine was still imposed due to the high speed he was driving at.
If special reasons for committing these offences are not there, exceptional hardship can also be argued if the resulting penalty would cause extreme hardship, such as not being able to take dependent family members to the hospital. Financial hardship, such as losing a job due to losing a licence is not enough on its own to prove exceptional hardship.
“When you take a car out onto a public road, you are taking out a dangerous weapon, so you need to have all the necessary precautions in place to protect yourself and others”, said a Judge once. Break the taboo of pleading guilty; getting your day in court is not about being able to prove that you are a good person, but about the elements of law that need to be proven.
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