Speeding ticket on salary sacrifice car, 3 month delayed NIP

Gibbo8891

Last week I received a Notice of intended prosecution (03/09/24) which was dated 30/08/24 for an offence on 21/05/24.

As my vehicle is a company salary sacrifice lease, I checked when the registered owner (leasing company) received notification, and they have stated they received on 23/08/24 which i believed to make the Notice invalid as it is more than 14 days after the offence.

I sent this to the enforcement enquiries email, and got this reply..

“With reference to the query regarding the service of the notice, the law requires that the notice is sent to the Registered Keeper of the vehicle on DVLA records so that it can arrives within 14 days. In this case, the notice was sent to the Registered Keeper of the vehicle on DVLA records within 2 days of the offence.

The delay in ‘Leasing Company’ Ltd receiving the notice, was due to the vehicles V5C log book address not being kept up to date. This is the responsibility of the Registered Keeper.

When no response was received from the original notice being sent on 23/05/2024, a reminder was sent on 21/06/2024. With still no response, we looked at the vehicles current insurance, which reflected a different address for ‘Leasing Company’ Ltd, we then wrote to them at the new address on 15/08/2024.

The 14 day rule only applies to Registered Keeper and not named companies/individuals named thereafter. The notice is therefore deemed served and we have met our legal requirement.”

I suspect all is proper and I’ll just have to take my course, but surely the whole point of the 14 day period is so that you don’t get stung for a surprise ticket months after the fact? Does anyone have more insight into this?

I appreciate this might have been covered, I tried my best to search!

TooManyPoints

The police have explained the situation to you correctly.

Whilst it may be the idea of a NIP that the driver is informed promptly, in practice, whenever the driver is not the RK, it is unlikely that prompt notification will be provided. Each recipient of a "request for driver's details" has 28 days in which to reply. So even if there was just one link in the chain to the driver (and there is often more than one) it is highly likely he will not find out about the allegation within 14 days.

facade

Unfortunately they are correct, their obligation is to send the first NIP to the registered keeper within 14 days, and it only applies to the first NIP.

Doubly unfortunately, they tracked down the registered keeper in time to prosecute the speeding offence.

Your best plan of action is to confirm you were the driver ASAP and hope that there is still time for them to offer a course.

Car_54

Gibbo8891 said:

I suspect all is proper and I’ll just have to take my course, but surely the whole point of the 14 day period is so that you don’t get stung for a surprise ticket months after the fact? Does anyone have more insight into this?

I appreciate this might have been covered, I tried my best to search!

You're right, but since the police have no idea who was driving, there is no alternative but to ask the RK, and the law reflects this reality.

It all seems in order. Be aware that most forces will only offer a course up to four months after the offence, so you need to respond PDQ.

Gibbo8891

Balls. Thanks for responses.

laidbackgjr

If you want someone to complain to - it's the leasing company for not updating addresses / having mail forwarding set up - if they had you would have known about the offence a few months back.