Does anyone know if you get multiple speeding tickets if you have travelled at least 14 times in a week down a road thinking it was a 30 not a 20 restriction?

[Mummytotwonow]

My poor friend travelled to Wales to help look after a friend after an operation and stayed for a week. She has just returned home and found a speeding ticket (she was travelling 26mph thinking it was 30mph road and the ticket says it was 20mph). She travelled along this road at least twice a day running errands for about a week. She is so so so worried she is going to get multiple speeding tickets with fines and points and lose her license. It says she will get up to 3 points and fine on the first ticket. I have have checked the name of the road online and it looks like it's a fixed camera. She is so worried. Does anyone know what happen in a case like this?

Thanks x

Yeah you can. I once got two within half an hour from the same camera.

@CourgetteGlutTony

it is possible to keep your licence even with more than 12 points, especially if the magistrate is sympathetic. The magistrate is more likely to be sympathetic if you are polite, apologetic and non-confrontational

You will only keep your licence if you satisfy the criteria - a ban would cause exceptional hardship to you and/or another . Being polite is a positive but won’t save your licence unless you can establish exceptional hardship. Losing your job is unlikely to be enough.

Of course she may need to meet the criteria for exceptional hardship, however this is entirely possible if she has children dependant on her being able to drive to get to work. The magistrate may also be more lenient where the offences were committed close together like this in an unfamiliar area, rather than several offences committed persistently over a longer period of time. The point I was making is that if you have made an honest mistake, it is much better to be up front and honest about this, rather than trying to "fight the system" and fine a loophole.

As others have said, it is possible to be caught multiple times by the same camera.
Although I was caught once, a few heats ago, and told on the speed awareness course that not all fixed cameras are always on, so maybe it is possible that it wasn't operating every time she went past.

*a few years ago

@Shade17

I would not advise trying to delay the process or employing specialist solicitors.

Terrible advise. As I posted before Andrew Thomson is the person to engage. Has a proven track record and got an amazing result for a family member. All he does is motoring law.

You are entitled to your opinion, of course, and obviously I don't know the circumstances of your family members case.

Specialist lawyers are expensive, and they get paid whether you win or lose. If there is a genuine reason for the offence not to stand (which doesn't seem to be the case here) then you are likely to get a successful result without the need for a specialist lawyer. I'm not saying don't get representation, but you really don't need one of these specialists who promise to be able to get you off any offence.

Some of these lawyers are well know to the police and prosecutors, who have seen and heard it all before, and are not likely to be swayed purely because of the lawyer being there.

@LaikO

As others have said, it is possible to be caught multiple times by the same camera. Although I was caught once, a few heats ago, and told on the speed awareness course that not all fixed cameras are always on, so maybe it is possible that it wasn't operating every time she went past.

Not all cameras are on all of the time, no, but they are turned on for a longer period of time than a day. Given that the friend has already had one ticket from this camera, it is probable that it was on for the whole week she was driving through. However, that doesn't necessarily mean she was going fast enough to activate it every time she went through though, which is why she should phone to ascertain how may tickets she actually has.

[quote Shade17]Andrew’s the person to speak to. He really is the dog’s bollocks. www.counsel.direct/[/quote]
Are you a friend or relative? Because unless you are, I can't imagine why you would recommend a barrister from Leeds to represent this indefensible case in Magistrates court in Wales (if it ends up going to court because OP's friend does end up receiving multiple tickets). It would be better for the OP's friend to go to court and plead her case honestly and contritely because if the correct signage is there, there are NO mitigating circumstances that will wash no matter how much of the "dog's bollocks" this guy is. And if that didn't work it would still probably be cheaper for the OP's friend to accept all the tickets and a ban and get a chauffeur drive limo for the duration of her ban than to engage this chap!

So she can't read multiple road signs that she had ample opportunity to see? That is dangerous.

@Miseryl

So she can't read multiple road signs that she had ample opportunity to see? That is dangerous.

It's also dangerous to unthinkingly drive down that road at 30 MPH, assuming that it's the narrow road next to the park, with all the parked cars and 20 MPH signs, which it probably is, because the 3 other roads with that name are all national speed limit roads mostly.

A good driver, paying attention to the task in hand, will instinctively drive slower than 30 MPH anyway, and be mindful of having to slow down frequently due to pedestrians immerging from between parked cars, doors opening, cars pulling our or coming the other way, turning out of junctions, the slalom features, etc etc.

If the friend ends up with an offer of a speed awareness course out of all this, she should take it, because that's exactly the sort of thing she will learn, appropriate speed for the conditions, which isn't necessarily the same as the speed limit, and how to tell what the speed limit is for a particular road if you can't see any signs.

This might be helpful - though Google street view isn't showing the speed camera so it might be newish.
If you put the name of the road in you get the camera location on the map.
gosafe.org/

That would likely be straight to court, not multiple tickets.

It’s about £7k to get a proper barrister to defend a motoring case. We had to do it once when John Lewis sent us email confirmation saying we had paid our premium but in the event they had failed to renew the policy. We had always paid it annually with automatic renewal, but they had decided not to automatically renew after all and only to automatically renew policies that were paid monthly. Only they hadn’t told us this was their new policy. DS had been in hospital so we hadn’t had chance to check for arrival of cover note. So husband was about to be done for driving without insurance - very serious. Lots of drama. Anyway, we defended it and won thanks to the smoking gun email telling us we had paid, but it cost a fortune. If the signs are clear, and all the right bye-laws have been applied in changing the limit from 30 to 20, your friend won’t have a leg to stand on. If not, however, she could always defend herself.

@Mummytotwonow

Hi, thanks everyone. The name of the road is Ty Draw Road in Wales. She really believes that she didn't see clear signs stating 20mph but is doubting herself and might have possibly missed them?? Which like she even herself and others here have said 14 times to miss just doesn't sound right.

That's very close to me. I wasn't aware of a fixed speed camera on that road. It might have been a mobile traffic enforcement van.

There are at least five 20 mph signs along the plus road traffic calming measures of narrowed road and signs indicating who had right of way.
Half of the road on one side is open parkland so the signs stick out more than usual.
The road is a long fairly straight road with few distractions. I think she may struggle to evidence anything other than poor driving perhaps?

As others have suggested, she needs to check the signs are correctly displayed.

If she does get 12 points, I think most magistrates wouldn't give her a ban, they would probably send her on an awareness course which might be a good idea if she really didn't notice 14 times.

Regardless I'm sure she's driving carefully now....

A colleague got 24 points from the same camera in one day under similar circumstances. He grovelled to the magistrate and got away with 12 points and a fine of about £1000 but no ban, his insurance jumped to about £5k though.

I didn't think they could put a fixed camera up for a 20 zone. Well, this is what my council told me when I enquired about them putting one up on our road, which is a 20 and is often raced up and down as its very wide and long!

gosafe.org/blog-news/2021/september-24th-2021/

It's a new enforcement area this year following multiple accidents. This says it all as is right by the side of park where children regularly cross

Is this where she got speeding ticket from?

@saraclara

Some years ago, a local vicar was caught going over the speed limit limit at 1am, rushing to go to support a parishioner whose DH had just died.

He appealed it, it went to court, he still got fined.
He still got fined.

Well yes because he intentionally was speeding in a non emergency. The OPs friend believed she was driving at the correct speed.

@Dinoroaraus

If it's in Cardiff by a big park then google maps shows it has a massive 20 in the middle of the road.

That is just on Google maps.

@TheVolturi

I didn't think they could put a fixed camera up for a 20 zone. Well, this is what my council told me when I enquired about them putting one up on our road, which is a 20 and is often raced up and down as its very wide and long!

Most of my area is 20MPH and we have fixed cameras.

Has the OP actually clarified which of the roads with that name we are talking about?

I've been lied to!!! 🤬

@CorianderAndCream my point was that absolutely no excuse is accepted when it comes to speeding. And certainly ' thinking you were doing the right speed' wouldn't be.

I had to do a speed awareness course a few years ago, and it was spelled out really clearly. In the eyes of the law, whether you drive too fast accidentally or on purpose makes no difference. Speed limits are for safety, and of you hit someone because you're doing 37 in a 30 limit, it makes no difference to the victim whether you exceeded the limit on purpose or because you weren't aware enough to notice the signs.

So many PPs claim to be perfect drivers who never exceed the speed limit but that’s certainly not what I see on my commute.