Thatsnews wrote:
crw wrote:
Can the lawyers in this forum tell us, if it is against the law to name a motor vehicle and not the driver?
Which is what the report bad driving blogs/forums is doing, naming a vehicle and not a person.
If you identify something which could identify someone then that would be potential grounds for either a slander or a libel action.
I am not a lawyer, though I did study some law at college in a time that was far, far away.
If a car driver breaks the law and you get one digit of the plate wrong and thus make an accidental false report. Or someone could make up a deliberate false report to get back at someone.
These site are, IMO, (and remember I am not a lawyer!) potentially dangerous.
I am assuming the chap means reporting on the internet and not to the
If the car trigs a camera - the registered keeper is notified by virtue of the routine check to Swansea's database
(which may not be 100% accurate .. about 95% given some 5% of "terminal chavs" do not register the chuckaways and some vehicles can be "cloned". Fortunately this last one is not quite as widespread as it once was..
- but it would be naive to pretend it does not occur.
The driver may not necessarily be the "registered keeper". OK .. so if it's a hired car.. or leased company car.. there is a paper trail which can lead to the identity of the driver. This works in the case of a NIP and even better if
collared by a REAL
But where there is no log . kept - pool cars used by small firms come to mind - along with the family who share the driving and honestly cannot recall at which point they changed over as it never occurred to them one of their party might do "something daft" are some ways in which merely reporting a vehicle being "perceived as being driven poorly" and thus merely placing its details on a website and thus providing the means to identify only the registered keeper and not necesarily the driver could be argued as a tort in the civil courts as it can be construed as infringing a basic human right to being assumed innccent unless proven or confessing otherwise via a properly issued NIP
This latter may be a fair cop or be admitted under duress dependent on the recipient's "perception"
of the NIP
A vehicle may be reported by two uniformed officers whose professional assessment (and may or may bot be backed by photographic evidence - but is preferable
and essential if a lone
(why the apple case had the helicopter photos
)
We have the means to trace the driver and ask the right kind of questions and charge if an offence has in fact been committed.
If the vehicle's details are placed on an internet site with malicious intent to harrass the owner of said vehicle.. then this could potentially be a criminal offence. But this would perhaps not be the only item of evidence in such a case as burdens of proof have to be able to prove guilt beyond reasoned doubt.
There is also the problem of a digit being transposed or partial recollection of the registration, mix-ups and confusion over make and model.... all of which can create what civil law calls a "tort" if an innocent party is "injured" by the posting of the details onto a website. "Injury" is not just the result of being "run over by accident". It also refers to "a party being wronged - as in defamed or falsely accused of something"
You would be surprised how often witnesses to any incident deviate and gt things wrong. That's why we take a number of statements and re-interview to sort out all inconsistencies in the accounts
Thus identifying a car on a website can perhaps infringe "law of tort"
You are far better off reporting to the police who might just be able to do something about it and be on the alert for any daftness its "driver may do".