driving offences
by Sarah Ganderton
Magistrates can impose the following sentences for driving offences:
Fines – These can be any amount up to several thousand pounds and are paid by convicted drivers to the court.
Penalty Points – These are used to endorse driving licences for various driving offences. Penalty points might effect insurance premiums or ability for drivers to obtain insurance. More importantly as they add up they can lead to disqualification.
Driving Bans – once banned from driving for one offence or for several offences where penalty points have added up, the driver is not allowed to drive a motorised vehicle. A new driver may have to retake their driving test to get their licence back.
Community Penalty Order - An alternative to a custodial prison sentence. It can combine punishment with rehabilitation. The requirements include: Community Service, Unpaid work, Curfew Requirement (Electronic Tagging), Supervision Requirement, Alcohol treatment requirement
Imprisonment - for more serious offences and repeat offenders. The seriousness of the offence depends on lots of factors: the level of alcohol reading, whether or not any accident occurred, whether or not any damage was caused to property and/or anybody was injured, whether or not the offender has previous convictions.
Driving offences include:
Unfit through drink or drugs (drive/attempt to drive) Road Traffic Act 1988
Excess alcohol (drive/attempt to drive) Road Traffic Act 1988
Excess alcohol (in charge) Road Traffic Act 1988
Unfit through drink or drugs (in charge) Road Traffic Act 1988
Fail to provide specimen for analysis (drive/attempt to drive) Road Traffic Act 1988
Fail to provide specimen for analysis (in charge) Road Traffic Act 1988
Careless driving (driving without due care and attention) Road Traffic Act 1988
Fail to provide specimen for analysis (in charge)
Causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving Road Traffic Act 1988
Causing death by driving: unlicensed, uninsured or disqualified Road Traffic Act 1988
Dangerous driving Road Traffic Act 1988
Drive whilst disqualified Road Traffic Act 1988
Fail to stop/report an accident Road Traffic Act 1988
No insurance Road Traffic Act 1988
For more infomation please call us on (0800) 6128724
The Coopers Driving School Team
