Safe Speed Forums

I have received a notification from the Essex Scamera Partnership (ESP) that they have decided not to take any further action in connection with an alleged offence.

Good news you may think, but the circumstances of the alleged incident and the ensuing correspondence leaves a nasty taste!

Last year whilst I was out of the country (documentary evidence to support) my vehicle was snapped by a Gatso. I rang the ESP to ask advice about identifying the driver. They advised i could request a photograph, but only if I made an application in writing, which I duly did.

5 weeks later I received a enlarged colour print (low resolution) along with a letter stating that "the photograph sent with the documentation in relation to the alleged offence is NOT required by law and is only sent to give the alleged offender the opportunity to check his/her vehicle, NOT to identify the driver" Then the usually sentence (highlighted in bold!) stating I had 14 days to comply with my obligations under 172 RTA 1988.

I replied within the timescale reiterating that I was out of the country, enclosing copies of hotel receipts etc. I advised that 'to the best of my knowledge' that any one of the 4 named persons could have been driving at the time of the alleged offence. I completed Section B of the NIP, stating 'see attached letter', did not sign the NIP and sent it recorded delivery. I have therefore FULLY complied with my obligations under the Act, as I was definitely not the driver at the time of the alleged offence, and could not possibly know for definite which of the 4 people was driving the car.

As I say I got a letter 3 weeks later (3 months after the alleged offence) stating they were prepared to take no further action.

However what has prompted me to post this topic is the follow up sentence. It states: "Such a reason WILL NOT be accepted on any subsequent occasion and will lead to the Registered Keeper/Keeper being prosecuted for failing to supply driver details" It goes on; "In such circumstances you need to be aware that if you were summoned at some time in the future it will be for you to satisfy the Court that you have taken all sensible measures. Therefore it will be in your best interests to keep basic records that will enable you to properly identify the driver".

I have done everthing the law requires me to do yet they attempt to intimidate me by inferring I have some sort of legal obligation to maintain some sort of log of who drives my car. It also infers I will be prosecuted even if I comply with S172 of the Act.

On what basis can they do this? Are they inferring I am lying? I have read that the Scamera Partnerships are not accountable to any particluar body, and the tone of their correspendence seems to reflect this.

At the end of the day I won, they lost (persumably due to economic reasons as the administration of 4 NIP etc was not worth the potential £60 fine!

In my mind this is out and out intimidation without any legal foundation! Has anybody else received similar 'threats'?

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Nicaf

Its a normal bluff & bluster threatening letter. Lots of other people get this when they cannot ID the driver.

You never know, perhaps ID cards will solve S172 as the car will know who is driving via RFID

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"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

Not after that unfortunate incident with the microwave oven it wont.

LMAO

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"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

Blademansw, do you really need to fill my screen just to write four letters, none of which I understand?

Not wishing to be a spoilsport, am I the only one who is fed up with these banners and slogans (not to mention careless use of quoting)? They make it so hard to follow a thread and, anyway, have lost all impact through over-use.

LMAO = Laughing My Ass Off

The quote was appropriate in this instance to ensure that the LMAO was taken in the correct context.

As to the banners, that's personal choice really. I like to use one

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"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

No, you're not. However, I've now woken from my slumber and found a nice solution to this nuisance. If you're using firefox just 'Adblock' the image.

Thanks for the tip, Johnsher, but I'm using humble MS Explorer.

Blademan, it may well be a personal choice. Personally, I try to ensure that any "personal choices" I make do not annoy other people. But that's a personal choice.

Especially for you, its gone. I was getting fed up with it anyway. Think the cartoon thing has been done to death now!

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"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

Good man! Now we can read the thread. You couldn't tell old wotsisface, could you?

Just a thought, what about contacting the Essex Chronicle and seeing if they would be interested in running a story on this threatening behaviour ??

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Local paper is unlikely to take up the cause as they like to stay sweet with the Old Bill. They might carry it on the letters page though (too long as it stands - you'd have to trim it first).

Mmm, there are some sites where Adblock is far more useful at stripping out the annoying non-ad clutter than in removing any real advertising-if there even is any to remove in the first place...

I'm now doing an increasing amount of forum reading/posting from a Windows Mobile PDA, and whilst disabling image loading takes most of the pain out of image-based clutter, it does nothing about text-based clutter. At least when I'm browsing at home I've got a large screen and unmetered/fast net connection, so first downloading and second displaying all the excessive quoting isn't such a big deal, but when I'm mobile with a limited transfer quota and a VGA display (damned nice by PDA standards, but still tiny in comparison to my desktop display) the waiting for each page to load combined with the extra scrolling around needed to find the relevant bits of each reply can sometimes be very frustrating.

Err, what's that got to do with Essex Scamera Pratnership trying to intimidate drivers?

Read on back. There was also a bit about unnecessary use of quotes. (and smilies!)

As I understand it, this would be a case of perverting the course of justice.

What would be? If the facts are that the registered keeper genuinely does not know who was driving and has shown reasonable dilligence in establishing the driver's identity then the defence can be used each and every time these conditions exist.

The burden of proof does not miraculously increase because you have previously proved these facts in the past.

r11co

This was exactly my point!

At the time of the alleged offence I was 6,000 miles away. How can I therefore categorically state who was driving my vehicle at the precise time of the incident. I have complied fully under the requirements of S172. For them to say I can't use that defense on another occasion I believe is against a rule of law, and as I said in my original post, they are using their perceived position of authority to intimidate me/the motorist.

The real reason as we all know is that they can't be arsed to follow it up because it is not cost effective!

In answer to Shabba, I was in no way attempting to pervert the course of justice. I was not driving! Fact! This is where cameras are flawed.

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Nicaf

Easy,
Leave a piece of paper and pen in the car for other drivers to log their use. You have complied, but it's strange that the named drivers don't.
Use Law to beat Law.