Myths About Driving Laws

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.

Probably the most common way out people think that they have is when a police officer makes a mistake on a traffic offence ticket, e.g. speeding, red traffic light offences etc. and most of the time, you simply wont have an argument.

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.

If you challenge the actual accusation however, i.e. you dont believe you did commit the offence they are accusing you of, then a mistake on a ticket could be put forward as evidence that the officers work is inaccurate and unreliable.

If however the only defence you have is that the officer made a mistake on the ticket, then this doesnt really warrant any kind of defence and you will probably be charged.

Human rights violations are something else that people try to cling to when accused of traffic offences. The usual argument is that because they are the registered keeper of the vehicle that they are not obliged to tell the police who was driving at the time in question because of their human rights.

This is simply not true, there has been an amendment to international human rights in this regard meaning that this information has to be provided at the request of the police or you will be liable for a hefty fine and six points on your licence as they claim that the compromise in human rights is proportionate to the need for road safety.

Another very common mistake that drivers make is that when they buy a new car, they are covered from the insurance on their old vehicle to drive any car owned by someone else with their permission, and as they havent made themselves the registered keeper of the vehicle yet, therefore it still officially belongs to someone else, therefore they are insured.

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.