Can I Appeal my Speeding Ticket?
Q.
In November 2007 I received a Notice of Intended Prosecution for exceeding a speed limit. It related to an incident that happened in July 2007. I paid the fine and my license has been endorsed with 3 points.
I now understand that the NIP should have been sent to me within 14 days of the incident. Would it be too late to appeal this?
A.
A speeding ticket must be issued within fourteen days of the incident to be valid. If you are issued with a speeding ticket after this point, you can appeal against the ticket. However, this usually has to happen before you pay the fine and accept the penalty points on your driving licence. As you have already done this, it is unlikely that you would be able to successfully appeal the speeding ticket for an incident that occurred over a year ago.
If this happens to you in the future, it is useful to know what you can do to help yourself. If you receive a speeding ticket for a speeding incident that happened more than fourteen days previously, you should write back immediately to the authority that issued the speeding ticket and inform them that the correct time limit in which speeding tickets should be issued has elapsed.
You may be lucky enough to have your speeding cancelled straight away at this point, but many people find that this is not the case and that they have to carry on fighting their corner to win their case.
If all else fails, this may eventually result in you choosing to attend a court hearing for your speeding ticket case, but this can be a risky decision given the court costs that you could be made to pay if you lose. These will be far higher than the original fine, and you could even be given more penalty points on your driving licence than would have been the case if you accepted the original fine and penalty points.
There are plenty of websites that claim to be able to sell you 'secrets' to help you escape a speeding fine and penalty points. These are usually a waste of money, as most of them simply offer you the same common-sense advice that is offered for free on reputable websites (such as the advice offered on this and similar websites). In some cases, the 'secrets' may not even be legal and could land you in far more hot water than would be the case if you followed more mainstream advice.
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