DSS has not paid speeding fine

[itsbritneybiatch]

Hi all
Hope you cAn offer some advice.

My DSS got a speeding ticket the back end of last year.

He got the letter, wrote back stating would accept the fine rather than the points as he is late teens.

We have since found out he hasn't paid the fine.

He was looking at car insurance last night and saw that his licence has been revoked ( this will be because of 6 points not long after passing his test).

He will lose his job if he has no licence.

Does anyone know of its worth contacting a solicitor as he states he received nothing At all through the post just this initial letter advising he had been caught speeding.

Or does he just need to suck it up and re take his theory and driving test again?

Once he's requalified.....He needs to be sitting down when he get's a new insurance quote.

I mean this kindly but like another poster has said if he has already got 6 points and has his license revoked, he needs to get used to not driving for a time until he is grown up enough to hold one again.
He doesn’t sound mature enough to be in charge of what is actually a lethal weapon on the roads and I for one am glad he’s not allowed to drive for a while.

He will lose his job if he has no licence.

Is he still in education or is this a full time proper job? If the latter I'd speak to a solicitor about it. From what I understand (which is admittedly not an awful lot) the sanction of losing a licence isn't supposed to be so punitive that a person ends up unable to feed / house themselves. Which is how you end up with high profile cases of people with more than 12 points put still with a licence.

Either way, though, if he is old enough to have a car then he is old enough to face the consequences of misusing a car. You and DH shouldn't be paying for the fine or any element of the re-test really. He needs to take personal responsibility for this.

In the mean time he absolutely must not drive. It is illegal and he is uninsured.

There are two likely scenarios here.

Firstly, he already had three points before this then got another 3 points as a fixed penalty for this offence, which meant a total of 6 points leading to his licence being revoked.

The other possibility is that he didn't already have 3 points and this was the first offence. He would never get 6 points as a fixed penalty though, it would have to go to court to get that.

However in this second scenario, a very plausible possibilty is that when he got the Notice of Intended Prosecution, he did not fill in the form properly and send it back. In some areas they send a reminder but not in every area. This would lead to him facing prosecution for failing to give the identity of the driver. He would then be sent court paperwork and warned that the trial would go ahead without him if he didn't turn up. (it is ridiculously common that people don't turn up for these things). Then as he didn't give his side of the story but the prosecutor obviously has evidence, the case would have been proved in his absence. Standard penalty for failing to give ID is 6 points and a fine. Bingo, 6 points acheived without being aware...

It sounds very likley there was additional paperwork received but ignored in this case. (If the second scenario, would be at least 1 Notice of intended prosection from the police, maybe a reminder, then a court date, then a trial date then a letter with court outcome.)

DVLA will be able to tell him when convictions they hold and will be able to clarify the date of those convictions, what court and what the penalty was.

From what I understand (which is admittedly not an awful lot) the sanction of losing a licence isn't supposed to be so punitive that a person ends up unable to feed / house themselves. Which is how you end up with high profile cases of people with more than 12 points put still with a licence.

Just to pick up on this. A licence being revoked is different from a 'totting' disqualifcation (where you reach 12 points). In the case of a person reaching 12 points then it should be an automatic 6 month disqualification unless the person claims and can prove that it would cause "exceptional hardship".

"Exceptional hardship" is a difficult test to pass. Some benches may be more lenient but we are told that just to lose your job is not enough to count as exceptional hardship, hardship yes but not exceptional hardship. It should only count as exceptional hardship if it had impact on other innocent people, so for example you could no longer care for a dependent sick relative, your business would go bust and employees would be out of work, you are the sole breadwinner and your family would suffer.

The idea is that it does cause hardship, it is a punishment after all but not that it negatively impacts on innocent dependents.

Even if he can retake and pass his driving test quickly enough not to lose his job his insurance will be astronomical.

Thanks just another

I have said all along by I find it difficult to believe that he didn't get another letter as there would have been another two for sure from the court. One letter going astray I can believe. But not three.

I've already said I don't want think we should pay for any element of this. That's between him and his father now.

He has financial commitments he needs to fulfil and if he can't drive he will lose his job.

If he seeks a solicitor would that be more expensive than a retest do you think?

Has he spoken to his employer yet?

I don't know if he has spoken to his employer yet.

Sorry but this is way past anything a solicitor can do now. He accepted the points, so there are no grounds for appeal. He then failed to communicate with the court and/ or pay his fine.

A solicitor may have been able to help at the point he received the initial notice. That's it, they can't reverse what has already happened.

When DH was caught speeding there was 3 letters sent;

1. addressed to me asking me to confirm who was driving - car is in my name.
2. letter to DH to say he had been named and could he confirm
3. his punishment 3 points and £100 fine or driving awareness course £93.

I may be missing something but why is he going to a solicitor? Didn’t he admit to him driving in the first letter?

The problem with failing to give ID is that it is what is called an 'absolute offence', either he did or he didn't fill in the form properly. If the police office concerned have not received and noted a properly completed form then he really should have some sort of proof that he had sent it off, so a copy or proof of posting.

If this was genuinely the first he had heard of it, he could look into making a statutory declaration to that effect. That has the effect of setting aside the original conviction and re-opening it so it starts afresh. That said I doubt this is actually the first he has heard of it and to lie and say it is would be perjury. Even if he did that he would only be able to re-open the fail to give ID case and would likely end up with the same outcome unless he is absolutely convinced he sent it off properly and can argue that successfully (very rare to be able to do that without some form of proof).

www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-procedure-rules-new-form-of-statutory-declaration

Of course it may well just be that this is his second speeding offence and nothing to do with fail to give ID at all! He needs to get the DVLA to confirm which it is.

Sorry, finally if his license has been revoked he can apply for a new one but will have to retake both parts of his test. The whole exceptional hardship element is irrelevant here as that is specifically for 'totting-up' to 12 points.

It is the DVLA who revoke the license, not the courts. And the DVLA also write to the license holder.

www.gov.uk/reapply-licence-revoked

Unless he really thinks there has been a miscarriage of justice, he needs to get applying for the new license asap in order to get the tests done and back on the road.

What is a solicitor going to do? He was caught speeding and either received 6 points from that offence or received 3 points and already had 3 points previously.

If you get 6 points within your first two years then your licence is revoked, that is what has happened.

I suspect he knew that something was up, OP, that's why he was on he DVLA website. I mean, does anybody go on that website other than to pay car tax or check when your MOT is due?

I think he shouldn't ring anybody; if he has his head in the sand then he needs to get his thoughts into a coherent timeline and then get the points down in writing so that he can refer to them in a call. I personally would send a letter rather than phone as it's a record of what he wants to say but I don't think he'll get his licence back until he retakes the test, sorry.

I've never known letters to go astray either. From the first speeding letter, it was in my diary to make a point of checking that the next letter had arrived so that I could follow it up myself if not. He definitely needs to keep up with 'paperwork' because it quickly slides out of your control if you don't.

What will he do if he loses his job? I hope his dad is taking an active role in this rather than just you, OP.

How is he going to do his job if he can't drive. He needs to speak to his employer today.

I hope this has been a wake up call for.him.

I suspect he knew that something was up, OP, that's why he was on he DVLA website. I mean, does anybody go on that website other than to pay car tax or check when your MOT is due?

Actually, with the GDPR coming in, insurance companies can no longer contact the DVLA themselves to check for any convictions. We have to go on to the DVLA website and get a code to give to the insurance company, which proves they have your consent to contact the DVLA. This will also show you the information the DVLA have on you.
I had to do this for the first time when renewing my insurance a couple of weeks ago.

When he is back later I will ask him to sit down and log onto the dvla with him. Then phone the courts to see what the fine is now at. I'm surprised this hasn't gone to bayliffs or whatever.

I'm getting him to phone because then I know where we are with things. I can communicate that to my DH. I am not prepared to wait for post, I need to understand today.

The work situation - it's whether he can do something else with the same employer until this is sorted out. That may be a possibility.

If not, he needs to get out and find a job like everyone else and make do with the bus and lifts where possible.

Kitty, that's interesting, I didn't know that, thanks. I had to do that 'code' thing for getting a courtesy car so that the garage could see that my licence was ok.

itsbritney, if you're going to be with him when he phones, I'd suggest putting it on loudspeaker so that you can note the salient points because it's difficult to do that if you're engage in the call itself - and not used to getting things done as your DSS sounds like (just like my brother!).

Hope it gets resolved to the best outcome it can be.

You keep saying he will lose his job if he can't drive, and he drives 100 miles a day for work. Please please tell me he's not actually driving at the moment ie today, yesterday, tomorrow, this week, last week, next week? If his licence has been revoked it is illegal to drive and any insurance is invalid. Why is he trying to get insurance if he's not allowed to drive? It sounds as if he might be breaking a lots of serious laws and may face prison when caught. He's not mature enough or responsible enough to be driving if he doesn't know this.

I've already explained hes not driving at the min.

So how is he working then if, as you say, his job depends on it? Glad to hear he's not driving and it would be a shame if all his hard work and studying were to go to waste because he didn't deal with personal admin and/or own his behaviour.

There's other things he can do in his line of work that doesn't involve travelling. He can do this for a few days.

Then after that? I don't know. He needs to work it out if his employer can't keep him on.

OP, was he on the DVLA because he's been stopped while driving for work? I'm just wondering if he's already been caught driving without a licence as it only seems to be recently that he's stopped driving - something must have made him stop, either a letter telling him that his licence has been revoked or something else ....