Contravening Traffic Signs & Signals, Road Signs & Markings
This offence covers a number of situations such as going through a red light, contravening double white lines, give way, no entry and one way signs.
Any signs, wherever they are placed must comply with the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 and if they do not, then a person contravening them commits no offence. The Regulations are very detailed. They give precise dimensions which must be strictly observed by the Highways Authority. Failure to do so provides a defence, however minor the deviation from the Regulations may seem to be.
Unsurprisingly, the most common type of allegation of contravening traffic signals are traffic light offences. These generally rely on either the evidence of the police officer who witnessed the offence or evidence from an automatic device positioned at a junction. Where photographs from these devices are relied upon there are strict procedures for the unloading and handling of the film from the device which are set out in the ACPO Code of Practice for Operational Use of Road Policing Enforcement Technology. If those procedures are not followed, it can often result an acquittal.
Case Studies: -
January 2009: A student instructed motoringlawyers.com after being accused of contravening a red light by a police officer on routine patrol. He was adamant that the light had turned to amber just before his vehicle passed through the lights and that he did not have sufficient time to safely stop. The position of the officer was such that it was doubtful that she would have had a clear view of the alleged offence. After representations were made by our team the CPS discontinued the case against our client.
October 2007: A travelling salesman with 10 existing points on his licence instructed motoringlawyers.com to defend his case after he had been summonsed for contravening a red light. The offence was alleged to have been detected by static camera. He had been advised by another firm that did not specialise in road traffic offences that he had little chance of defending the case and that he should plead guilty and argue exceptional hardship in order to try to keep his licence. Matthew Miller, a solicitor at our Manchester office looked at the evidence in the case and noticed that there were numerous deficiencies in it. At trial, the prosecution was unable to establish that the proper procedures were followed from the time the offence was alleged to have taken place to the time the photographs were developed. Consequently, the Court could not be sure that the photographs had been taken by the device at the time and location specified and the case was dismissed.
November 2006: A chartered surveyor with a clean licence had been accused of going through a red light on the junction of a roundabout and a dual carriageway by an officer in a police patrol vehicle. He insisted that at the time he passed through the light it was on amber and due to adverse weather conditions it would have been unsafe for him to stop. The officer was not positioned directly behind our client's vehicle but made a judgement based on the fact that the lights on the other side of the roundabout were green. An expert report was obtained which showed that the sequence of the lights was such that it was not possible to be sure whether the lights which are client went through were on amber or red when the lights facing the officer were on green. On receipt of the expert's report the CPS discontinued the case against our client.
In all the above cases, orders for our clients' legal costs to be paid from central funds were made by the Court.
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