Court summons for mobile phone driving

[Onlyme234]

Hi all
I was caught sending a text on my phone in standstill traffic in March last year. Silly of me but a police officer was walking past and caught me. I got issued an FPN and received a letter in the post with a £200 fine and then details of how to surrender my license details online. I didn't realise that I also had to send off my license, fill out a form and send that off too. I honestly just didn't read the form properly.
I paid the fine and did it online but didn't send the form off. In September, I received a refund of the £200 and a court summons.
I'm due to go to court on the 23rd and was wondering if anybody had any advice?
I want to just go in and be super honest and say it was human error and I didn't read the form properly. Has anyone ever had this before and received more points or a larger fine?
Do they just reissue the same as on the FPN or am I at risk for more?
Any advice valued please

Hi .

Explain and apologise. Mske it clear you accept you were wrong in using the phone. Write something to give to the cout clerk. Take evidence you tried to pay fine maybe bank statement.

They needed the licence to add the points. I think you will get the same penalty points and fine and mabe some extra court costs sat £150 . I am a lawyer but have not dealt with crime for some time.

I realise it isn't the point it what does it matter if stationary? Nowadays all cars have touch screens to control everything form radios to heating and maps tapping away at those whilst sat in traffic is no different to looking on a phone. I really think the PC should've unclenched a bit.
I'm all for full force of the law whilst actually driving but stationary?!

The line has to be drawn somewhere otherwise a law is very difficult to enforce. Yes, there is a difference between 'stationary in standstill traffic' and 'stationary for a few seconds while waiting to pull out' but once you start muddying the waters it opens the way for all kinds of excuses and technicalities to be waved around.

Go to the court, explain your mistake. Chances are you will be given the same penalty and fine. You can get legal advice from a solicitor at the court on the day if you don't want to get one. Not the end of the world.

On this occasion, it was stationary. Noone is that unlucky that they are caught the one and only time they use their mobile whilst driving.

Why should you need to send your actual license away ? I’ve been done for speeding before and never had to do that just provided the details on the license and it’s updated on the website

It's obviously an unpopular opinion on here, going on the other responses, but assuming that standstill traffic means a mile-long line going absolutely nowhere for ages, and not just in town and waiting for a red light to change, I think it's a massive overreach, and not really 'policing by consent' to take somebody to court for advising others that they'll be very late as the traffic is rammed.

If you're in this scenario, you often don't even have the opportunity to pull over somewhere, out of the queue, and turn the engine off. It seems like a law that you have to keep for the sake of keeping it.

Other than that, though, I do agree that no driver should ever touch a phone when the car is moving/active and you need to observe and be ready to move anytime soon.

Maybe she is a new driver and will lose here licence for 6 points?

I got the points and the fines once. I was on the phone because my daughter was in hospital and my husband was calling me after the ward round and I was very worried.

It was no excuse.

My points will still be there for another couple of years. I am so grateful I got this consequence. Being on your phone whilst driving is one of the most dangerous things you can do. It was utterly stupid and indefensible.

I no longer touch my phone when I am in a car. The world has not ended and as a result, I am a much safer driver.

I thoroughly regret what I did, and I’m still so grateful I got the fine and the points as it really taught me a lesson not to be an idiot.

I hope this will do the same for you as well OP.

I expect she's quite capable of doing that.
To the OP - yes they may increase the original penalty but an early guilty plea might mitigate that. You know it was wrong and I'm sure you won't do it again however much people have a go at you.

Counselling!? For committing a crime!?

Have you tried ringing the original bumper on the fixed penalty paperwork, explaining and asking if you can pay the penalty and send your licence off?

It's a little close to the deadline now, but I can't see why they wouldn't have given you another chance and cancelled the summons if you'd done that as soon as they refunded. Worth a try.

If not I would expect the court to be sympathetic given you accepted blame and tried to pay.

I think anyone who touches their phone when the car is stationary is likely to use it when they are moving also.

No id never touch it when moving but i have sometimes sent a text or looked for something on a map when in standstill traffic with the handbrake on.

OP have this moved to legal asap as you will get better advice. There used to be a good forum called Pepipoo too but I think it’s currently down. You might be able to avoid court by arranging to pay a fine and agreeing to points on your licence. It’s a waste of court time for you to attend when you accept the charge.

Grab your sack cloth and ashes. You are going to induce a pile on from all the perfect people who have never ever done anything stupid ever, other than not comprehend the OP.

OP has owned her initial error in texting while behind the wheel and tried to take the due fine route. The issue is what happens if you make a subsequent admin cock up and end up in a court summons. As a student nurse, I assume she is young with limited life experience. Perhaps it would be kinder to offer guidance on that instead of putting the boot in?

Many years ago my husband had speeding fine but didn't have his driving licence with him. He had (stupidly) packed it in his kit box which took 6 weeks to get from Bosnia back to UK, so he wasn't able to meet the deadline for submitting it and got summoned. His fine moved from £300 to £1000 pounds, from memory, but no additional points.

Maybe, but that's just an opinion.

Personally, whilst I agree that there are some people who wouldn't care and would do that, I think many people who wouldn't dream of touching it whilst in an 'active' car (moving or soon to be moving) would justifiably feel very frustrated sitting in a two-hour standstill motorway jam or accident scene and not using their phone to let others know they won't be there until hours after expected.

I suppose you could turn the engine off and remove the keys - would that be legal whilst technically still 'in traffic'? - but any police or occupant of another nearby car might not know/believe that and still prosecute or photograph and report you, so I doubt most would risk it, even when there's absolutely no danger whatsoever.

Be honest and explain to the court your mistake but don't go as far as make excuses eg I'm sorry I didn't read it correctly, it's my fault I didn't read it thoroughly rather than I didn't read it because of a and b because that won't get you sympathy. Reiterate that it was your fault for not reading the instructions properly and you know that even stationary if the engine is running you must not touch your phone, you can then empathise you need your car for placements because you are a student nurse. Basically sorry sorry sorry .... my dh got off a ban for driving way to fast by saying very sorry and he needed to drive for work, got 6 points instead and £500 fine

How fucking patronising.

I’m a teacher and didn’t have to declare a driving conviction I got as a student - not sure if it’s different for nurses. I went to court for driving uninsured. Arsehole abusive ex told me he’d insured us and I should have checked. 6 points and a £250 fine but it didn’t appear on my police check when I got my permanent job and when I asked my employer (LA) they said it wasn’t a declarable offence. This was a long time ago though!

It's a driving offence which has been tightened up considerably in recent years, and is now largely zero tolerance. Presumably because phone usage is now so pervasive that the only way to try and get drivers to take the rules seriously, is to make the consequences very harsh and apply them automatically.

The problem with using your phone in stationary traffic is that it distracts you from what's going on around you. If the traffic suddenly moves and surprises the driver who was focused on their phone, there's a risk that the driver tries to catch up and in their haste they may not be aware of a hazard that's developed whilst their attention was elsewhere. And whilst there will be people who are sending one quick text to say they are running late, there will be others who use it as an opportunity to scroll - and it's really difficult to apply a tolerance level and police it fairly.

I think being a student nurse is an aggravating circumstance, not a mitigating circumstance. Despite being in regular contact with RTA victims, she used a mobile whilst in control of a vehicle.

Exceptions for use are here - the exception for being parked links to separate rules which are specific. If you were in a traffic jam, even when it hadn't moved for a while, I think you would still be in breach of the rules - whether the police would issue a NIP or not I suppose could depend on how bad the jam was and how long the traffic had been at a standstill.

https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law

If anything, this makes it even more stupid what you did. It is literally EVERYWHERE about using your phone whilst driving. Dont know why people still do it!