Driving Penalty Offences: Points on your licence?

Texting:
Texting while driving a vehicle makes you 22 times more likely to have a crash, research recently established.

Motorists who attempt to send or receive text messages spend around five seconds first focusing on their mobile- which, at 55 miles an hour, is enough to cover the full length of a football pitch!

That technically makes texting on a mobile more dangerous than dialling a number on your mobile phone or simply reaching for the mobile handset, which both also raise the chances of a road accident six times.
 

Other common mistakes included hesitation at road junctions, speeding (obviously), following the vehicle in front too closely and failing to signal properly where appropriate. Research shows that male and female drivers live up to their common gender stereotypes; men are very often over-confident and use excess speed, while women drivers generally drive more intelligently, but are often far too hesitant. Research shows that experienced drivers tend to get into very bad habits that wouldn't necessarily count against a candidate on a driving test, but are nonetheless unacceptable, including poor anticipation, approaching junctions too quickly and coasting.
 

Failing to Report an Accident (AC10)

The Offence
Being the driver of a mechanically propelled vehicle, owing to the presence of which on a road an accident occurred whereby personal injury was caused to another person, and not having given your name and address to a person having reasonable grounds for requiring you to do so, failed to report the accident at a police station or to a constable as soon as reasonably practicable and in any case within 24 hours of the occurrence of the accident.

Maximum Penalty
6 months imprisonment and/or fine not exceeding Level 5
Endorsement with 5-10 penalty points
Discretionary disqualification

 

Speeding/Exceeding the speed limit (SP30)

Offence
Driving on a road exceeding the prescribed speed limit

Maximum penalty
Fine not exceeding Level 3
Endorsement with 3-6 penalty points
Discretionary disqualification

Comment
If you are doing more than 30mph over limit you are very likely to be disqualified depending on speed, road traffic conditions, weather etc.

If you are offered a fixed penalty option, and you are guilty then you are probably best to take this option, as your licence will be endorsed with the minimum number of penalty points and the fine (currently £60) is likely to be less than that imposed by the court. There will also be no court fees.

Possible defences are that you were not speeding, that it was not you driving, or that you were driving an exempted vehicle in an emergency.

The prosecution may obtain a conviction by producing in evidence photographs taken from speed cameras. There is no requirement that such photos have any other evidence to back them up. If no photo is available then the evidence to convict you must come from at least two different sources, although one of these may be mechanical such as the police car's speedometer/radar gun/VASCAR. Under s20 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act (as amended by s23 of the Road Traffic Act 1991) where a radar device is used the police merely need to provide a record produced by the prescribed device AND (in the same or a separate document) a certificate as to the circumstances in which the record was produced, signed by constable or authorised person.

Speeding on a Motorway (SP50)

Offence
Driving on a motorway in excess of the speed limit

Maximum Penalty
Fine not exceeding Level 4
Endorsement with 3-6 penalty points
Discretionary disqualification

Comment
If you are driving in excess of 100 mph you are likely to be disqualified as well as being fined.