At Risk Of A Totting Ban

Question:

Using a mobile

Please can you help me. I have been sent a NIP asking for my details. It says that I was using a mobile phone. I was not stopped for this, I have just received it through the door. The thing is I already have points on my licence for using a phone, and since then I have never used a hand held mobile.

I always use hands free. On the day in question the police have obviously seen me put my hand to my ear and end a call. I then removed my earpiece. For some reason that day I was getting quite a bit of interference on the set, and told the person I would pull over and call back from my handset which I did.

My bill shows that I made a call about 2 minutes after this one. If I was pulled over at the time he would have seen that I had a complete hands free kit in my car, but he never did this.

This has now not given me the opportunity to show that I use handsfree. It will now go down to my word against his as he was on his own. Why are they going to believe me when I already have this on my licence.

This will now give me a totting up ban. The other points on my licence I deserved as they were completely my fault, but I would hate to lose my licence because of what a policeman thought he saw. I can not understand why he did not pull me over. It was not a busy road so he could have easily stopped me and asked me to pull over

Paula Says:

I understand your concerns.

The police can either stop you at the scene or send you a request to name the driver along with a written NIP in the post.

If you have 9 points already then you are going to be at risk of a totting ban I’m afraid.

If you were on hands free then you will have a defence. You have to be actually holding the phone whilst using it and whilst driving to be guilty of the offence in question. You have to be careful not to antagonise the court though because you need their sympathy because you are at risk of a driving ban if convicted.

We defend lots of these allegations and we maybe able to get the case withdrawn without the need for a trial. We succeed in doing this in over 80% of the cases that we take on and we win over 95% of the cases that we defend overall.

Can you tell me why you need to be able to drive.

If you would like a free advice call please come back to me and I will be happy to assist.