But if you read the article the speed limit was 50mph at the time, that is like driving through your High Street at 43mph.
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not exactly like driving through the high street as it is a motorway, unofficially the rule over here in roadworks like that is if you go 15mph over you get a ticket, but we donât have fixed cameras everywhere and enforcement is still mostly handheld cameras or the odd van.
people speed through where I live all day, I donât care what they do on empty motorways, urban areas is the problem
might well be more to it, considering the penalty.
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No argument and I did read the article. Merely questioning why it went to court when, I assume, he had the option of simply accepting the fixed penalty and points? Also assumes he was not eligible for a speed awareness course. Says he plead guilty so why did he go to court?
BTW I have, in the last 15 minutes, just completed the online awareness course. A first for me. Found it interesting, very professional and not unreasonable in any way.
I cannot honestly say I learned anything I did not know or appreciate already bar one thing. That is NOT a position of arrogance btw. To my shame, if you like, I was well aware of the laws, consequences of breaking them not only to myself and appreciative of being reminded of simple truths that we choose to ignore every day in life without reasonable excuse. Yet we are human and we err.. constantly. To be made to reflect on that in an honest fashion is fair to a fault.
As to the one new thing to know, the instructor confirmed at the end that you are under no obligation to inform your insurer of either the offence or attendance at the course. The caveat is that âif specifically askedâ you are obliged to answer truthfully per the terms and conditions of the specific insurer. However the impression I came away with is that they are really not even entitled to ask. It is effectively like the offence never happened.
However, he also stated he knew of no insurance company who do ask and suggested, if they did, just move on and find another. The rationale is that as of completing the course the points disappear as if they never existed and the only record of the course remains with the police for solely their own purposes. i.e. ineligibility to take the option again within 3 years of the date of the original offence.
If I am wrong feel free to correct me but that is the message I came away with.
Thus I have ridden the rap and happy to have been accorded the privilege.
Just re-read the article and, as Sid suggested, I think it entirely possible there was more to the story. Iâd guess the most likely scenario is that he already had 9 points stacked and the new offence took him to 12 thus entering âbanâ territory? In that case without some acceptable reason to the Magistrate whatever mitigation offered was rejected? Who knows?
The way the article presented it was to give the impression at least that the sentence was for this one incident? Just my 2Cents.
This reminds me of something else the man on our SA course said - instead of just accepting and paying the fine âYou can choose to go to court and argue about it with a magistrate if you like, but it wonât change the outcome, and if heâs in a particularly bad mood that day, he could ban youâ 
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Yeah but bit of a mugâs game unless you can challenge their equipment or identification etc.
For example if the details on the summons are wrong in some way could get away with it but, like you say, you are gambling on the mindset of the beak on any particular day.