Car Park Accident - Hitting a Pole

[jimmyinin]

Hi, I am wondering if someone can help me out on this? Whilst driving 5 miles an hour in a supermarket car park being a Saturday noon it was quite busy and I drove into a parking pole whilst driving into my bay. It took of my wing mirror and a dent occurred on my right side of the car. Haphazardly this happened so fast that I didn’t get the chance to react on it. When I looked back of the car, the car-parking pole was damaged and I left the scene of the accident without stopping, as I was scared and worried. When I visited the car park again I realised the little car park pole was uprooted. I am happy to settle the matter without recourse to my insurance company, as this would affect my claim & costs being my second minor accident this year. No one was hurt but presumably I panicked. Can someone advise what do I need to do ?

[New Judge]

As I said, AB, it is an interesting point and the CPS guideline is enlightening.

I think in practical terms if Magistrates were presented with a defendant facing two charges they would have to consider the "totality" of the offences and in many cases I would suggest that they would determine that they arose from a single "event". If they did decide to sentence separately they may impose two fines but if they decided the offences were too serious for a fine any community order or custodial sentence would certainly be concurrent. As with all multiple traffic offences penalty points or a disqualification would only be imposed for the most seriou, although the licence would be endorsed with the details of both offences.

An interesting topic. It would be useful to see any case law on the matter but I cannot find any immediately.

[ABerrant]

In any event, 1 or 2 offences - 1 set of proceedings

[New Judge]

Yes, let's leave it at that. We've hijacked Jim's question enough already !!

[MASS1961]

About 2 years ago I reversed into a pole in a Sainsbury's car park. A small mark on the the towing bar of my car and the pole was certainly not vertical but not destroyed. I drove away.
Not worrying about a knock on the door.
As methyl says, move on!