Speeding ticket for company car driver

DoaM

I have a company car. I was snapped by a mobile camera van on the A66 last summer. I got my own S172 NIP through the post ... admittedly it was beyond 14 days, but that'll be because the initial S172 NIP will have been sent to the lease company (ALD in my case) who then named me as the day-to-day keeper.

Unless the car is leased to a company as a fleet vehicle, if it is normally assigned to a person then the lease company knows who that person is. Thus they'll contact that person directly and not via their employer.

System

scott284 wrote: »

I will just have to bend over and take the points and fine.

Why are you blaming everyone else for something you have caused yourself? You need to start taking some personal responsibility for stuff that goes wrong in your life because you'll have a damned miserable one if you don't.

RichardD1970

scott284 wrote: »

I know the morally correct thing to do would be to ask the lease company if they had received a request for driver information after the alleged offence took place, but I obviously want to avoid getting the 3 points and a £100 if at all possible. As far as the police and lease company know, I was oblivious to the alleged offence taking place and assumed that the lease company had acknowledged my e-mail notifying them of the change of driver details.

Then don't speed then, simple.

(And before the "holier than thou" accusations, yes I do sometimes speed but if I were to get caught then that's my fault and I wouldn't try to find a loophole to get out of it)

TooManyPoints

The bottom line is I don't have to do everybody's job for them.

No you certainly don’t. But…

I am not the registered keeper of the vehicle.

No. But you are “the person keeping the vehicle” which is not quite the same but for these purposes is as near as makes no odds.

The registered keeper has a responsibility to name whom they believe was the driver at the time of an alleged offence. In the case of a lease company they will hold details for the “person keeping the vehicle” and nominate him (as they can do nothing else). So to move on:

“Therefore there is no evidential presumption that the notice has been served on me,…”

Yes there is and

“…therefore the prosecution have to prove that it was served on me. They have to prove this beyond reasonable doubt.”

No they don’t. As with the first NIP (and S172 request) to the RK, a NIP/S172 to anybody else further down the chain also enjoys the same privilege in that it is deemed to be served two working days after posting unless the contrary can be proved. So, the ticket office will have proof that it was posted and it is deemed to have been served on the addressee two days later. If you wish to rebut that assumption the burden shifts to you to prove it (on the balance of probabilities). Whilst it is not (perhaps) your fault that the documents were sent to the wrong address, it is not the fault of the ticket office either.

You may be able to successfully defend a S172 charge (though blaming the leasing company for not acting quickly enough when you neglected to tell them of your change of address “for a few months” and seemingly only did so when you thought a S172 involving you was on its way will not help your case.). You may even be able to so do the usual “deal” with the prosecutor and have the S172 charge dropped in return for pleading guilty to speeding. But it all gets very messy. As well as that, as has been mentioned, any offers of a Speed Awareness Course or a Fixed Penalty will be long gone.

If you really believe you have been caught speeding doing nothing is not a wise strategy. If there is a case pending making enquiries will only make things easier for you. Hoping to escape a conviction and out-of-court disposal on the sort of technicality you describe is fraught with danger.