2 Speeding tickets within 1 mile on SAME motorway

[Mark_R]

I recently got stopped by the police on a motorway for speeding (85mph). At that time they also told me that there was a mobile unit on the bridge that I had just gone under and that has probably got me too - they said that these cameras were not run by the police.

 

I agree that I was speeding and deserve the ticket, but surely not TWO, given that this was within less than a mile surely that is just one instance.

 

Anyone had experience of this and has any advice?

 

I have already paid the first ticked that the police gave me before I received the second!

[Aretnap]

Sounds like a single speeding offence detected by two methods. If a policeman and a CCTV camera both see you committing a murder, it doesn't mean you committed two murders.

 

If it was a single offence then as a matter of law you cannot now be prosecuted for it having paid the fixed penalty. However you will have to point this out as it's unlikely that the system will match up the two detections unprompted. I'd suggest completing the NIP naming yourself as the driver (you're obliged to do this regardless) and attach a letter explaining that you were stopped at the same time and in the same place, and have already paid a fixed penalty for this offence. Include some details which ca be checked if necessary - ideally the FPN's serial number if it has one.

[Mark_R]

Thanks Aretnap. Sounds like a plan.

 

I guess that it is subjective as to whether they are prepared to accept it as the same offence - I have been unable to find out if there are any rules defining what distance would be classed as the same instance. (Certainly within a mile should be).

 

I will give it a try.

 

Cheers

[Aretnap]

I'm not sure if there's a definitive ruling on what makes one speeding offence become two, but whatever it is it would have to be an objective test, not a subjective one based on the whim of the camera operators - and ultimately it would be for a court to make the judgement. Things which might lead to you committing a second offence would include dropping back below the speed limit, then breaking it again, a change of speed limit, possibly a change of road... and it would be for the prosecution to prove that one of those things had happened but I can't see how there could be any rule that you commit one offence per (arbitrary distance). I suppose if you'd been caught speeding twice two hours apart at opposite ends of a motorway the court might be entitled to assume that you'd slowed down in the meantime and therefore that it was two offences - but that would be a ridiculous assumption to make over the course of a mile.

[crem]

At 85mph you cover a mile in 42 seconds. If the camera was indeed within that same nominal distance I see no reason that a defence that it was one continuous offence would not be successful against the second ticket.