There have always been myths about loopholes in the law and its quite rare that any of them are true. Recently, a few have popped up regarding driving laws, and as usual, there are very few that have any truth to them.
Possibly the most frequently heard claim is that if a police officer fills in some information incorrectly on a traffic offence ticket, like a speeding ticket, then the ticket is void. This, as with most of these theories, is not true.
This is a false belief because traffic offence tickets are not official evidence. They are simply summaries of the incident for referral. If you were to challenge the validity of the ticket because the officer had made an error on it, then all that would happen is; the officer in question will have to write up a detailed report which he will not make a mistake on and a court summons will be sent to you.
The only way that a mistake on the ticket might help you is if you take issue with the actual offence, i.e. you dont believe you went over the speed limit or ran a red light or whatever theyre accusing you of. If the officer has made a mistake on the ticket then you could bring this to light to discredit the rest of his evidence by implying that his approach to this offence is sloppy.
However if you did actually commit the offence and a police officer catches you, you dont really have a leg to stand on.
Another theory that has come up is that when the police ask you who was driving the vehicle at the time of the offence, you dont have to tell them because that would violate human rights. People think that if you are the registered keeper then you dont have to answer the question who was driving it as your human rights allow you to withhold this information.
The fact is that this just isnt true. Human rights have been changed to this effect because the compromise in human rights is proportionate to the importance of road safety.
Another mistake that is fairly commonly made occurs when people have insurance policies that allow them to drive other peoples cars with their permission. The mistake is that, they will buy a new car and before they are registered as the keeper of the vehicle, they believe that it officially still belongs to the old owner, therefore they think they can drive it without switching their insurance over.
This is not true either, if money has exchanged hands for the car then as far as a court of law is concerned the car belongs to you, and if you have not transferred the insurance over from your old vehicle, then you are not insured on the new one, and therefore driving illegally.
Tags: Red Light, Cars, speeding ticket, Chalfont
