fixed penalty notice

kitch

Hi. Looking for some advice if possible.

Woke up yesterday to a fixed penalty notice for no tax on my car. It is taxed and the disc had simply fallen off the windscreen and was in the passenger footwell.. I can only assume its been whipped off with winds we've had recently when the door or window has been opened. The ticket was issued at 22:30 on Tuesday night so it was dark and he wont have seen it on the floor. They want £100 from me as a fine.

Seems very harsh.

Our next door neighbour is a policeman and is disgusted that the local station have been so petty. We're hard working and always abide by rules etc.

He spoke to the station, but they said its already been submitted through the system so its tough basically.

They could have checked within seconds if the car was actually taxed.

Anyone have any advice? Presumably going through the courts would be mre expensive in the long run and they probably know that.

Thanks.

Moto2

The penalty is for not displaying rather than no tax

It's annoying, even more so given that from later this year you won't need to display anything
Not sure there's anything practical you can do now though - other than pay

kitch

Thanks Moto2. Very annoying. Will see if there are any other suggestions too. I have about 26.5 days left to pay if that's what I have to do... :-(

Just to be picky, the ticket itself says no tax rather than no tax visible.... not sure if that makes a difference.

Ultrasonic

kitch wrote: »

Just to be picky, the ticket itself says no tax rather than no tax visible.... not sure if that makes a difference.

In that case I'd definitely query the ticket, explaining that the car is taxed (which can be verified online). If you're lucky it might be an error?

TadleyBaggie

And in 6 months or so it wouldn't even be an offence any longer.

Aretnap

kitch wrote: »

Just to be picky, the ticket itself says no tax rather than no tax visible.... not sure if that makes a difference.

Not really. There are two separate offences: failing to tax the vehicle (maximum fine £1000 or five times the annual duty - whichever is higher) and failure to display the vehicle licence aka tax disc (maximum fine £200). "No tax" is arguably ambiguous as to which it refers to, but it doesn't really matter. The fixed penalty notice is essentially an offer not to prosecute you in return for a fixed payment of £100 and you either accept that offer or you don't. If you don't you'll be prosecuted for failure to display, the FPN becomes no more than a scrap of waste paper, and the court will only be interested in whether you were displaying the disc, not in what was written on the FPN.

Of course if they got it wrong and did charge you with failure to tax rather than failure to display you'd have a defence... but I wouldn't bank on that happening.

You could ring them up and query it on the grounds that you do have tax and has there been a mistake... but it sounds like you've already done that, more or less, through your neighbour.

As for the actual law, it says

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/22/section/33

A person is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he uses, or keeps, on a public road a vehicle in respect of which vehicle excise duty is chargeable, and
(b)there is not fixed to and exhibited on the vehicle in the manner prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State a licence for, or in respect of, the vehicle which is for the time being in force.

There doesn't seem to be an exception where you did exhibit the disc and it fell off the windscreen through no fault of your own, so by the letter of the law you're guilty of the offence. Which is unfortunate and you'd hope that the police would show some discretion... but they don't have to.

While the fine can't increase too much if you go to court (maximum £200) you'd also have to factor in court costs, travelling expenses, time off work etc, so you would probably end up worse off by going to court even if the magistrates were sympathetic. Personally I'd kick something, pay it and move on.

kitch

I think I'll kick something once for every wasted pound.

Really informative response, so thank you. Not what I wanted to hear, but thanks for taking the time.

Looks like I have to bite the bullet then. I shall be waiting the most amount of time possible so they're not making interest off my money!

Mark_Mark

Moto2 wrote: »

The penalty is for not displaying rather than no tax

It's annoying, even more so given that from later this year you won't need to display anything
Not sure there's anything practical you can do now though - other than pay

Is it?


That used to be £30.

Aretnap

Mark_Mark wrote: »

Is it?


That used to be £30.

It used to be about ten shillings if you go far enough back (maybe). Went up to £60 a few years ago and to £100 from last August (linky).

Moto2

Mark_Mark wrote: »

Is it?


That used to be £30.

So did my weekly wages

kitch

Just a little update on this. My wife called the payment line today... we decided to bite the bullet. The payment line asked for a 16 digit reference. My wife couldn't find it on the fine 'slip' so ended up doing a live chat with West Yorkshire Police.

They said there should be a 16 digit reference somewhere. Funny thing is that there doesnt seem to be a section for 16 digit reference anywhere. The person on the other end of the web chat suggested that the form might not have been filled in correctly and referred us to call 101 and speak to our local station.

The interesting thing is that at the top of the slip it says 'PART 2 - Drivers copy'. Now I assumed that meant that part 1 was the bit the police person kept, but may be it means there was another section that should have been included but wasn't.

Can anyone shed any light on this? I know tickets are different in different areas but would be good to hear what people think.

Thanks.