Smart Motorway Red X fine

yllop1101

Hello, 

I'm posting here on behalf of my partner. At 1am one evening when driving home on the M5, as we were approaching our motorway exit (where the 4 lanes on the M5 split to go off to the M4), lanes 1 to 3 (of 4) had a red cross over head, and we could see up ahead (beyond the fork/junction) all lanes were open (No red X's overhead).

As we drove under one set of cameras, my partner moved from lane 4 (no red X) to lane 3, to start making his way across to Lane 2 to slip off. He triggered the cameras and a fine has since arrived.

We are debating if it's worth contesting this in court as he needed to move safely across the lanes to slip off, and it seemed like the red X's were randomly/sporadically on overhead for no reason, I. E the next lot ahead weren't on, and we hadn't passed anything which Warren Ted them being closed, so my partner didn't think moving across the lanes was unsafe, and more importantly, it was necessary to move from lane 4 to be able to slip off into the M4.

The alternative is going on the driving course and 3 points. There isn't an option to write in and contest it, it's just court, with the risk of paying court fines if found guilty. Its just frustrating as he genuinely thought he was making a legal move, he was driving 41mph in the 40 zone (captured by the cameras)  and the alternative would have been to miss our exit if we were to truly obey the red X's until we passed under the next lot of signs with no red X's in. It seemed like an error that the signs were even on in the first place. 

Any advice appreciated. 

Redx

an interesting conundrum, but as this forum deals mainly with private parking tickets, I suggest you post your query over on pepipoo fightback forums in one of their non private sections, possibly with a scan of the paperwork ?

do NOT use a hotmail email address for signing up

then ask a board guide like crabman to move this to the motoring forum here, in case people there can give advice

daveyjp

This will be a strict liability offence, like speeding.  The signs are in force until a gantry indicates otherwise.
This may mean missing an exit, but that is what you do.
if you are going to fight what is a very new offence find a very good traffic lawyer who can find loopholes in legislation and open your wallet wide.

Redx

I bet Nick Mr Loophole Freeman could do that for the likes of Beckham , but the cost would be in the thousands or tens of thousands , lol