Due Care & Attention in place of a speeding fine

[Sam98_01]

I was stopped at the weekend for passing a police van on the motorway at around 90mph. He stopped me as i came off at the next junction and asked how fast i was going. I said around 90mph - and he said he was going to report me for driving without due care and attention for not observing the speed limit. He then cautioned me (after asking me all the questions). My questions are three-fold: 1) Is this an accepted alternative to giving a speeding fine? (He was a plod in a van - no radar) 2) If i hadn't admitted to the speed before being cautioned, would he have been able to do anything at all? 3) Can i expect points and a fine in excess of what would be a normal fixed penalty for speeding - and if so, what should i expect? Thanks.

[NORMANTHEDOG]

hung from the neck until you die.

[seatrout]

1. Its not an alternative to speeding. A greatly excessive speed ie more than 30mph above the limit can result in prosecution for due care. It all depends on whether your driving fell below the level expected of a competant motorist
2 Your reply to caution would not have altered the situation. The officer will have paced you in his car.
3 Yes hopefully you will be banned

[MrsT]

1) no, Plod will often try and bully you with this, just plead not guilty, speed alone can be considered a due care issue but 90 in 70 is not a due care issue based on speed alone
2) Doubtful he could make it stick without being a traffic plod with vascar or some other speed detection equipment. So even if you admit to "around 90" they have only circumstantial. If it was a traffic car then they would have most likely offerred you a fixed penalty.
3) You can get up to 6 points for both offences so it is possible to get banned in theory, unlikeley in this case

I would plead not guilty to both, the due care will disolve as soon as plod realises he'll have to attend court and it won't stick anyway. The speeding charge is not backed by any evidence so that would probably not stick and even if it did it's a 3 pointer.

Ignore the motoring evangelists above they talk a load of old pony.

[Yorkie580]

Was it just speeding? Were you undertaking as well?

It depends on exactly what happened. Most motorways have CCTV along them so it may have been captured on that.

Was he by himself? If not, and the speedo is calibrated, then that can be given as evidence.

The decision as to whether to proceed or not will not be taken by the officer but by the CPS and court (stangely enough the courts don't drop something once someone goes not guilty just because the officer says that they won't bother afterall).

[Sam98_01]

No there was no undertaking... it was a clear motorway for a distance of around 800 yards. I did readily admit i'd reached a speed of around 90 mph, but it wasn't for a prolonged distance - the fact that he was right behind me as i approached the junction only half a mile ahead proves that point to my mind unless he had a rocket powered transit van.

He was alone in the van and if he'd had a calibrated speedo then surely he'd have charged me with speeding? That i could have acccepted (albeit begrudgingly), but i find it hard to believe they can use due care and attention just because they don't have a vascar or calibrated speedo on board. I'm taking the not guilty option and i'll just see what happens in court i guess. Thanks for all the advice - any more snippets though, please do tell!

[Yorkie580]

I'm not being sarcastic, but did you see the police car...

Yes - then a magistrate may wonder whether you just have a disregard for traffic laws

No - how much care and attention were you paying to not notice a big flourescent striped transit van.

Make sure you get represented in court.

[Sam98_01]

Yes i saw him... i'd been five cars behind him for half a mile. I freely admitted my speed infraction for a short distance. Bottom line though is whether due care and attention is a substitute for speeding. Guess that's what magistrates are there to decide!