I sent this letter with signed but incomplete NIP.....


Dear Sir,

I received a “Notice of Intended Prosecution” form in the post yesterday and after reading the attached guidance notes felt I needed to telephone the Camera Processing Unit for assistance in completing the form.

This afternoon I spoke with Mr ***** who told me he was a Police Officer whose badge number was ****. I explained to Mr ***** that the vehicle in question was being driven by either my wife or I but neither of us could remember who was driving at the point in time when the speed limit was exceeded due to us sharing the driving on most journeys that we do together. Mr ***** was unable to confirm the identity via the recorded photographs of who the driver may have been because he tells me that the camera is unable to penetrate a tinted windscreen like the one on our vehicle. Mr ***** pointed out that the speed camera was a temporary one along a long stretch of road-works on the M4 motorway and asked me whether either of us had noticed the “flash” of the camera to which I replied we hadn’t, I did wonder afterwards whether this could have been due to the tinted rear windscreen. In fact neither of us had particularly noted that road-works were being carried out on the M4 unless row upon row of traffic cones constitute road works. I am sure you can appreciate that it is possible to become blasé with the amount of traffic cones on roads these days, but that does not mean one can be assumed to be driving without due care and attention or that every coned stretch of road has a temporary speed restriction.

I was surprised to hear from Mr ***** that at the recorded speed of 73 mph the case may be heard by a Court of Law and an automatic driving ban could be enforced on the driver of the vehicle, this surprised me most because we were on a motorway at the time and always try to keep to 70 mph. I do wonder now the accuracy of our speedometer since the vehicle is an import and had an mph speedometer retro fitted to comply with UK regulations.

Regardless of any of the above I wished for help on completing the form to which I found Mr ***** as helpful as possible in the circumstances. I was told that failure to complete and sign the NIP form would likely lead to a Court appearance and possible prosecution. Yet on reading the form I noted that by supplying “false information knowingly or recklessly is punishable by a fine of up to £5000”. This leaves me as the owner of the vehicle in a difficult position because to declare that I was the driver would be providing false information because neither my wife nor I can remember who was driving at the time, and by not completing the form I leave myself open to prosecution for not completing the form, the phrase “damned if you do, damned if you don't” springs to mind. There is nowhere on the form for me to provide the truth.

Mr ***** suggested that my wife and I talk between ourselves to sort it out, which of course we already had done. The only conclusion that we could come up with is for me to write this letter to you to explain the facts as outlined above. We have decided to nominate myself as the “sacrificial lamb” i.e. the driver of the vehicle at the time of the alleged offence even although we cannot be certain who was driving; we understand that one of us has to take responsibility.

I realise that the NIP form that you have sent me is not designed for such a situation but non-the-less I have signed it and returned it to you with a full covering letter of explanation. I trust that you can understand the situation I have found myself in and hope that this letter has been helpful to you in order for you to process the alleged offence. I acknowledge and recognise that I have taken full responsibility for the alleged offence and should a fixed penalty ticket be issued this will be paid and settled immediately or alternatively should the matter instead go to a Magistrates Court I may be liable to prosecution, fine and disqualification.

I do realise that it is entirely up to the discretion of the Camera Processing Unit as to how the matter will proceed and I am not trying to shirk any responsibilities for the alleged offence. It is not as if I have “robbed a bank”, “mugged an old age pensioner” or such like. If you decide that driving at 73 mph on a motorway warrants wasting taxpayer’s money on a Court hearing then that is entirely up to you but whatever the outcome I am sure it will not change my driving habits, I have a clean driving licence (although had an SP 30 on 26/04/95), consider myself a careful driver, and genuinely try to stick to speed limits. I am a farmer and hold a “firearms certificate” that proves I am a law abiding citizen and it is essential to the welfare of my animals that I am able to commute as and when required at short notice, we have no busses in the countryside!

The cynic that I am tells me that all of the information above will be disregarded by suggesting that “rules are rules” which if you pardon the pun is known as a “cop out” because I know in life it is still possible to use discretion and initiative. Incidentally my 15 year old son is hoping to be a Police Officer, even after explaining all the pro and cons there is no dissuading him….some things will always be a mystery.

Yours sincerely,


THEIR REPLY...

Dear *****

I note from your recent correspondance that you have difficulty in establishing the driver of the vehicle on this occasion.

The law requires the owner/keeper of a vehivle to supply details of the driver at the time of the alledged offence. Failure to do so could result in the owner/keeper being fined, having their driving license endorsed, or being disqualified from driving, unless they can satisfy the Court that they have taken all reasonable steps to identify the driver.

The case will now be prepared for the Magistrate Court, and thay will contact you shortly.

Yours sincerely

Manager
Camera Processing Unit


MY REPLY...

Dear Mr ***,

Thank you for your letter dated *****.

I believe in my covering letter that you received with the returned “NIP” that I have accepted full responsibility for being the driver at the time of the alleged offence, I am sure that this satisfies the Law in full.

Please forward to me the two photographs that were taken of my vehicle by the speed camera at the time of the alleged offence together with the time span, indicated in seconds between the two photographs.


Yours sincerely,


THEIR REPLY...

Dear Sir/Madam

A Reminder

I have previously sent you the above referenced NIP form relating to an alledged traffic offence. To date our records show that this matter is still outstanding.

If you have already sent correspondance or a propperly completed form to this office or submitted your driving license and payment to the Magistrate Court, it is possible that the documentation has not been recieved. however, if you have previously been in correspondance with this office making enquireies about the notice it may be that the time limit to comply has expired. This could result in the issue of a summons.

In these circumstances your liability remains outstanding and you are advised to contact this office without further delay. You can contact this office in writing or by telephone.

If a response is not recieved within 14 days, a summons will be applied for. I therefore await your urgent response.

Manager
Camera Processing Unit.


MY REPLY...

Dear Mr *****,

Thank you for your further letter dated *****.

This is just to confirm the telephone conversation that I had with Mr ***** on ***** in reply to the letter I received from you requesting an urgent response.

I spoke to Mr ***** on ***** expressing my concern regarding this second letter that I had received which I found quite threatening. I was told by Mr ***** that somehow the case against me was being processed for “failure in establishing driver” and not for the alleged speeding offence. I found this quite extraordinary since, and I quote from my first letter (enclosed with the N.I.P) paragraph 6 “I acknowledge and recognise that I have taken full responsibility for the alleged offence” and my second letter paragraph 1 “I have accepted full responsibility for being the driver at the time of the alleged offence”. I am not sure how either of these statements could be misinterpreted because they seem quite clear to me and I had assumed that any case against me would be for the alleged speeding offence only.

Following this explanation Mr ***** has now told me that the case against me will proceed as the alleged speeding offence. I am not quite sure why it is always referred to as “alleged” since it is obvious that you cannot disagree with evidence from a “gatso speed camera”, maybe the wording is an attempt to imply the process is democratic rather than autocratic. Whatever the process is I wish it was not so long winded and trust that at the very least it will be over in time for Christmas so that I can put all this worry behind me.

Yours sincerely,


THEIR FINAL REPLY...

Dear Mr *****

I refer to your recent correspondance.

Having given careful consideration to all the circumstances of this particular case i have decided to take no further action.

Please ensure that in future your driving is beyond reproach and within the limits of the law. Statistics confirm that a very large percentage of accidents arise from vehicles being driven at excess speed or through drivers failing to observe and comply with traffic signals.

Yours sincerely

Manager
Camera Processing Unit.

What, pray tell, has this got to do with requirements to submit the identity of the driver?

quite right..

isn't it about time , councils were forced to tidy up their act, ie get on with some work or remove cones PDQ, None of this leaving a few cones and collect 200 quid every time someone passes go !

rgds & well done.

Bill

The presence of cones or otherwise is irrelevant. There will have been a TRO for the speed limit and that is all that matters.

Not so. The TSRGDs provide that, in the case of a temporary limit, leaving the speed limit signs up after the works have finished and all obstructions have been removed, is a non-precribed use of the signs.
There was a high profile case in Luton a couple of years back, where the road works had finished, but they left the limit signs up. The council are members of the scam. The scammers, presumably according to the plan hatched by them and the council, creamed in revenue.
Eventually it hit the papers, when someone won on the non-prescribed basis, and there was a hoo-hah.
So, the cones are crucial. Having learned from Luton's mistake, they leave them up, so that there is still an obstruction, and the revenue can continue to be hoovered in.

Thank you JA for the correction

What if the cones are present but not forming an obstruction - i.e. they have been moved onto the central reservation (well off the carriageway) and/or to the edge of the hard shoulder?

robin

jeffrey, do you have a link to the specific bit of the regulation?

<pedant>Not a link, no.</pedant>

However, it's Direction 36. (about 5/6ths the way down).

Restrictions on the placing of temporary signs
36. <...> and any other sign shown in a diagram in Schedules 1 to 11 so placed shall not be retained on or near the road after the completion of the works or the removal of the obstruction, as the case may be, unless -

A 670 is in Schedule 2.

Having re-read the direction, it could also be argued that cones themselves, whilst an obstruction, were not the reason for the 670 signs, so the cones themselves are not a reason for retention.
It'd need an expert witness to carry it off, though, I fear.

36. The signs shown in Schedule 12, other than in diagrams 7014, 7019, 7020, 7032 and 7103, may be placed only in connection with the execution of works on or near a road or a temporary obstruction thereon, and any such sign so placed and any other sign shown in a diagram in Schedules 1 to 11 so placed shall not be retained on or near the road after the completion of the works or the removal of the obstruction, as the case may be, unless -

I only added the bit about the cones to pad out my letter, not even sure what the state of the cones were at the time!!! I just thought add as much bullsiht and carp as possile to confuse the buggrers. I didnt even have a passenger with me and I'm not married. Do you think any of that about the cones had any bearing on the reason why no further action was taken?

You may think lying about the circumstances of your alleged offence is smart - I don't. We're here to help peple stand up for their rights, not to write any old bullshit to avoid a fine.

Phil123
Nick Freeman your'e not!
Parliament and the Courts do a good job of writing the laws bulsh*t we use to avoid fines.
fatboytim

Reading your long letter, I'm not surprised they dropped your case.

Most people replying to the scameras say as little as possible.

They probably think you're a nutter, outside the realms of a normal prosecution case based on law, logic & facts.
You've thrown a spanner into their system & they didn't know what to do.
(like meeting any nutter in the street).

You're more trouble to them prosecuting you than it's worth.

You've got away this time, but I don't think it's a repeatable technique.
Most of us want to say as little as possible & are too rational.

peterb

Ps: 73mph in 40 roadworks is pushing it.

I fully agree - and would add that other people have been successfully prosectuted for perverting the course of justice (with the strooong possibility of a custodial sentence) after boasting on a forum about how they lied to get off.

What! A nutter with access to firearms! Wonder if that swung the decision

plse may I withdraw my comment about well done... not so..

my view about cones still stands, and to add to it, A top policeman from surrey ? said about 6 months ago, that anyone making a challenge to the m25 speed control cameras , in his view, would have a good chance of success if the road was free , as they would be in place, taking pictures for a reason that wasn't intended (ie congestion ) ... surely the same applies to cones

what do i Know ?
rgds
bill

I am not a farmer but I hold a shotgun license and a firearms license but I would not use this as an excuse to prove I was an upstanding citizen.

Your correspondence offers some hope for others in that you may or may not have remembered the driver at the time.

As this site is open to all prying eyes it may not go down too well if you admit lying to escape a penalty when your firearms license is up for renewal

For the record, Phil123 sent this in a PM:

Derby Uni are offfering a degree in Trolling?

This reminds me many years ago working in Dept. Psychology and the daft things students used to get up to.
Testing people and observing their reaction sometimes end up with flattened nose or black eye.

'They probably think you're a nutter, outside the realms of a normal prosecution case based on law, logic & facts. What! A nutter with access to firearms! Wonder if that swung the decision'

'You may think lying about the circumstances of your alleged offence is smart - I don't. We're here to help peple stand up for their rights, not to write any old bullshit to avoid a fine'

Says it all really.
No Andy I do not think the op is learning the art of Trolling. Much too smart.

Ian C

Looks like we were right all along.
I think most people here qualify for PhD's & we'd be up with the best professors in spotting
any nonsense/internet plagiarism.

The feeding frenzy was just about to start.

peterb

I am a bit confused!

here we have a set of posts from phil which A. he claims to have got off a ticket. B. later he admits to a few lies. then the forum tells him off
C. Then he claims his lies are actualy all lies too because he was testing the board.


Well , I believe that the exchange of letters look too genuine.
and the later admissions in section B look realistic.
It is part C that stinks.

Any way it brought out some intresting stuff about phoney psudo roads works
If you are real phill, take more care.
If you are a copper/scammer thanks for the roadworks stuff

Shotguns & lies don't mix !!

It's normally best to say as little as possible to Police & authorities
in case they take an interest.

peterb