Convicted for speeding,,,not havin that.....

sesna

jhegarty wrote: »

No , by law he should have been offered 2 points + €80

There are a range of options available to a judge when deciding a penalty. Extra points/fine or both.

Drummerboy08

The Dagda wrote: »

speeding is relative. relative to law. a court officiates law. OP does not want to take hit. it's is constitutional right to go to court to argue his case.

To get away with speeding or to be given the chance to pay the original fine?

I understand why he wants the chance to pay the original fine, but I dont think he can get off the charge completely.

Gary ITR

sesna wrote: »

There are a range of options available to a judge when deciding a penalty. Extra points/fine or both.

As far as I'm aware if convicted of speeding in Court the Judge has no say in the amount of points and it's automatically 4 points that are applied.

It was explained to me as this, speeding is a 4 point offence but by paying the FPN within the alloted time you are only getting half of the points


Anyway is it safe to say this thread is done?

sesna

Onkle wrote: »

As far as I'm aware if convicted of speeding in Court the Judge has no say in the amount of points and it's automatically 4 points that are applied.

It was explained to me as this, speeding is a 4 point offence but by paying the FPN within the alloted time you are only getting half of the points


Anyway is it safe to say this thread is done?

Not so - I went to court with 2 offences and faced having a potential 8 points on my licence. The judge left the points penalty as would have been if I had not gone to court, a total of 2 points for each offence.

barney 20v

jhegarty wrote: »

No , by law he should have been offered 2 points + €80

He was, he should have known this course of action was implemented by the Garda at the road side.. if the OP knew the rules of the roads he would know he has 28 days to pay the fine. regardless of if he received it or not the action and fine still stood..the 28 days passed, he was summonsed to court and pleaded guilty..he received his just penalty.

Mr. Presentable

How come so many fixed penalty fines get lost in the post?

The gas bill always arrives, the ESB bill always does too. Weird that a fine doesn't. :rolleyes:

Occam

cpoh1 wrote: »

. It is up to the state to say without doubt that the fine was delivered and the adjudged had every opportunity to pay it and only then should a heavier fine be imposed.
.

While you may be morally correct, its not an argument which should be accepted in the district court.. Proof of postage is currently what the state must show.

Also the circuit court ruled that "the non-receipt of a fixed penalty notice is not an automatic bar to the judge proceeding with the trial". So even if you could proove that you definitly didn't get the Fixed penalty notice you could still be convicted.

This of course means that there is no legal need for the state to send the fixed penalty notices using registered post, as even if the notice was not delivered, they could still prosecute, for four points, and fine.

This would need to go to the high or supreme courts to be changed.

"MOTORISTS CAN no longer rely on telling a judge they didn’t get a fixed penalty notice for speeding in the post as a way to avoid extra penalty points and a higher fine in court"

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0716/1224250762336.html

jhegarty

nipplenuts wrote: »

How come so many fixed penalty fines get lost in the post?

The gas bill always arrives, the ESB bill always does too. Weird that a fine doesn't. :rolleyes:

I have had ESB / Waste Collection / Sky bills going missing before getting to me before.

But I didn't feel the need to post about it because it didn't cause me to end up in court.

cpoh1

Occam wrote: »

While you may be morally correct, its not an argument which should be accepted in the district court.. Proof of postage is currently what the state must show.

Also the circuit court ruled that "the non-receipt of a fixed penalty notice is not an automatic bar to the judge proceeding with the trial". So even if you could proove that you definitly didn't get the Fixed penalty notice you could still be convicted.

This of course means that there is no legal need for the state to send the fixed penalty notices using registered post, as even if the notice was not delivered, they could still prosecute, for four points, and fine.

This would need to go to the high or supreme courts to be changed.

"MOTORISTS CAN no longer rely on telling a judge they didn’t get a fixed penalty notice for speeding in the post as a way to avoid extra penalty points and a higher fine in court"

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0716/1224250762336.html

The district court *may* take this approach but if i was in this position i would take it further, appeal and win simple as that. I would regard that Irishtimes article as a scare tactic and nothing more to discourage people from benefitting from a genuine loophole in the system the state are too incompetent/incapable/notarsed changing. The problem for the state is that although there is precedent for rejecting this excuse in a few cases there is also plenty of precedent for accepting this excuse, on appeal you will be successful.

On a separate note a lad in work got away with asn €800 euro donation to a charity of the judges choice recently after getting caught doing 190kmph on the motorway to dublin, no points or endorsements so i would say there is plenty of scope for the judge to issue anything he likes depending on his mood!

The Dagda

barney 20v wrote: »

DO please explain how he can appeal a conviction to which he pleaded guilty....

as I understand it, to appeal a district court conviction you have to go to a circuit court, where you can withdraw your plea of guilty...

The Dagda

Occam wrote: »

While you may be morally correct, its not an argument which should be accepted in the district court.. Proof of postage is currently what the state must show.

Also the circuit court ruled that "the non-receipt of a fixed penalty notice is not an automatic bar to the judge proceeding with the trial". So even if you could proove that you definitly didn't get the Fixed penalty notice you could still be convicted.

This of course means that there is no legal need for the state to send the fixed penalty notices using registered post, as even if the notice was not delivered, they could still prosecute, for four points, and fine.

This would need to go to the high or supreme courts to be changed.

"MOTORISTS CAN no longer rely on telling a judge they didn’t get a fixed penalty notice for speeding in the post as a way to avoid extra penalty points and a higher fine in court"

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0716/1224250762336.html

this is one judge's interpretation and no doubt this ruling will be tested...

it's also important to note that the the judge ruled that gardaí have to produce proof of postage and, as I understand it, no such system of proof of postage is in existence, yet...

Zubeneschamali

cpoh1 wrote: »

The district court *may* take this approach but if i was in this position i would take it further, appeal and win simple as that.

That decision was in the Circuit Court.

Do you really want to try appealing to the High Court over a traffic ticket?

The Dagda

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

That decision was in the Circuit Court.

Do you really want to try appealing to the High Court over a traffic ticket?

according to that article the case was/is adjourned, therefore the ruling is not complete...

cpoh1

Just a follow up on all this. My day in court was last friday. Garda insisted on seeing the matter through rather than agree to strike it out beforehand, namely my non-production of insurance and non-display of insurance disc. Waited my turn, stood up explained the situation to the judge, showed him my insurance cert for the time along with the disc from last year, she continued to argue about the disc. He gave the garda a bollocking for wasting court time and I was a free man!

To sum this all up, be vigilant, get a receipt, and keep all records of old insurance certs and discs because you never know when you'll need them.

As an aside there were loads of people up for unpaid speeding fines on the day, every one of them was thrown out for the non-receipt of fine by the judge, at least 30 of them. Looks like despite the media protestations about this loophole being closed it is still very much a viable excuse on the day.

sesna

nipplenuts wrote: »

How come so many fixed penalty fines get lost in the post?

The gas bill always arrives, the ESB bill always does too. Weird that a fine doesn't. :rolleyes:

Weird also that the state will happily screw you and presumptiously expect you to send them €80 euro without question, for driving a few kmp/h over a posted limit, or for moving into a bus lane 10 meters early when turning left (causing absolutely no danger to any other motorist and nothing to do with road safety), yet that same state is too cheap to spend a few euro on registering the post.

Its little wonder why normal citizens who fund the state and Gardai themselves through exorbitant PAYE, motor tax, tax on fuel, VRT, etc, etc hold this system in disdain.

L1011

nipplenuts wrote: »

How come so many fixed penalty fines get lost in the post?

The gas bill always arrives, the ESB bill always does too. Weird that a fine doesn't. :rolleyes:

Actually, I've continual problems with lots of post not arriving to the point that I get as many bills as possible delivered electronically; and I'd say I've had about one in five eBay packages go "missing" but the sellers always blame Royal Mail (when I'd suspect its pilfering An Post).

Don't expect that everyone has reliable post.

keithclancy

MYOB wrote: »

Actually, I've continual problems with lots of post not arriving to the point that I get as many bills as possible delivered electronically; and I'd say I've had about one in five eBay packages go "missing" but the sellers always blame Royal Mail (when I'd suspect its pilfering An Post).

Don't expect that everyone has reliable post.

AnPost are gas sometimes,

I got a plastic bag containing shreds of paper from an post before with a sorry note written on the outside.