duty to give information as to the identity of driver Options

[sparklezz]

Hi

I am wondering if anyone could give me some advice please on what I should do. I got a letter today to provide my information in regards to an offence that has alleged to have happened. The letter states it happened at the end of may this year but i have no recollection of what it could be. I was not involved in an accident nor would i have been speeding going highly populated road with cars.

I have looked at the road it says it happened on and all I can recall is that it may have been when the main road to my home was closed and I had to follow the diverted signs. I was not the only driver to follow the signs which lead to a one way street in a residential area but as this was also closed off we had to turn around and go a different way.

Could someone advise me please as this has me worried.

Thank you

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[sparklezz]

It's quite straightforward. If your reply is not received in time to accommodate the offer of a course or a fixed penalty (if appropriate) you won't get such an offer. The matter will go straight to prosecution . You may be able to persuade the court to deal with the matter by way of a fine and points equivalent to the fixed penalty. They have guidance which allows them to do so.

The only upside to delaying your reply is the matter may "time out". The chances of this happening are very slim. They have until the end of November to begin proceedings. You only have until 16th October for your reply to be received. The chances of missing the deadline for a course or FP are very high (and in fact have probably already passed). Delaying your reply will only make that more likely. Added to that, if you perchance exceed the 28 days allowed (because of, say, postal difficulties) you may face a "Fail to provide" allegation anyway, so not a very good strategy.

Since you don't know what is alleged or whether it can be dealt with by way of a fixed penalty anyway you have little or nothing to gain from trying to engineer a timeout and I would respond asap. You never know, you might actually find out what it is all about.

One thing that might be worth exploring, if you find out what is alleged, is the matter of a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP). Many offences require a NIP to be served on the Registered Keeper within 14 days of the alleged offence. From what you say you have received no such notice.

Thank you for the response. I will be sending the letter back today completed as requested just to get it out of the way. I haven't anything to hide nor do I believe I have done anything wrong, but it worries me getting such a letter after such a long time about an incident and without any information. I have never actually had any driving offences so this is all new to me.

I totally appreciate all of the help, you have helped ease the worry a little.

Thank you.

[andy_foster]

It's quite straightforward. If your reply is not received in time to accommodate the offer of a course or a fixed penalty (if appropriate) you won't get such an offer. The matter will go straight to prosecution .

We have seen plenty of cases where COFPs have been offered or extended after the 6 months to prosecute have expired, so I would suggest that your statement that the OP "won't get" a COFP is incorrect.

[NewJudge]

We have seen plenty of cases where COFPs have been offered or extended after the 6 months to prosecute have expired, so I would suggest that your statement that the OP "won't get" a COFP is incorrect.

Should I say "most unlikely to get.." then? So what happened in those cases when the driver politely declined the offer, Andy?

[Redivi]

Don't recall any threads where the COFP was declined but there were a few OPs that received but ignored them

IIRC a couple of them had a reminder that they hadn't paid with nothing more heard after they ignored it ?

[NewJudge]

IIRC a couple of them had a reminder that they hadn't paid with nothing more heard after they ignored it ?

Well they wouldn't would they? There is nothing more that can be done and my question was somewhat rhetorical.

But to avoid argument I'll modify my earlier post to "if you reply too late it is extremely unlikely that a fixed penalty will be offered (though it has been known)."

This post has been edited by NewJudge: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 - 08:10