Speeding And No Insurance

Question:

Hello,

I got pulled over today for speeding. 50mph in a 30mph zone. I genuinely wasn’t aware it was a 30mph zone.

To add insult to injury the car that we had borrowed off of a family member, whilst he sourced a new car for us (he is in the motor trade) turns out that we were not covered on his trade policy, even though we were told we were.

We presumed we had cover, as did our family relation, but on closer inspection his insurance policy is named drivers only.

Does this case have to go to court or could we settle out of court (Special Reason)?

We accept the speeding fine (and points) but we genuinely would not drive knowingly without insurance cover.

We have a new born baby and I work as a nursery nurse so this is somewhat concerning for me as I need a car on a day to day basis.

I have no previous convictions.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Paula Says:

The speed is high and you maybe at risk of a short discretionary ban for the speed alone.

You will be at risk of 6-8 points for the no insurance matter but if you were misled into thinking that you were covered you may have a strong special reasons argument to avoid the points. The court will take this matter seriously as they will view the fact that you were driving at speed and without insurance as an aggravating feature so you need to handle this with care.

How long have you been driving?

You cannot settle cases out of court by arguing special reasons. A special reasons argument is something that you present to the magistrates to try and persuade them not to impose the points., Its not up to the CPS to agree behind the scenes.

I understand your need to drive.

You need to make a special reasons argument regarding the insurance issue and the court will decide whether or not your belief that you were insured was reasonable.

You are not going to be able to avoid the points on the speeder though – but it should be possible to mitigate to try and avoid a short ban.