Challenging a speeding ticket
How many times have you received a speeding ticket and just paid it? Have you ever challenged the allegation? It’s often worth looking twice at the evidence the police produce against you and making sure that you see it all.
We were instructed to advise a motorist accused of travelling at 60mph on a road with a 40mph limit. Our client was willing to accept that she had been speeding but was unwilling to agree she had been travelling that fast.
Upon reading the evidence, we noted that our client had been caught by a Gatso fixed speed camera. The evidence comprised of a witness statement from a police officer who produced the photographs from the Gatso and explained that as a backup method of checking the speed there are road markings painted at 2m intervals, which were visible in the photographs.
Calculating the speed of a vehicle is easy, you simply divide the distance travelled by the time taken to arrive at the speed:
Distance / Time = Speed
By counting the number of road markings our client’s vehicle had passed between the first image taken by the Gatso and the second image we were able to determine that our client’s car had travelled around 11 metres and we knew from the evidence that the two photographs were taken 0.5 seconds apart.
11 metres / 0.5 seconds = 22 metres per second
Now that we know our client’s car was travelling at 22mps we can multiply the speed by 2.237 to work out the speed in miles per hour
22 metres per second x 2.237 = 49mph
Armed with this evidence we were able to approach the prosecutor to ask that they accept a plea on the basis that our client exceeded the speed limit by driving at 49mph not 60mph. The difference is important because at 60mph, the sentencing guidelines indicate that the court should consider an immediate driving disqualification; however, at 49mph the court should impose 3 penalty points. The reduction in speed also reduced the fine the court is required to impose by 50%.
If you have been accused of a speeding offence and you want expert legal advice from a specialist motoring solicitor, then call us today on 020 8242 4440 or send a message via our contact page.