Quote:
In the US you can refuse mail unopened, can you do that? What happens?

There are two stages to getting a ticket in the UK:

1) Police send a "Notice of Intended Prosection" - this requires that the registered keeper of a vehicle identifies the driver at the time of the offence. They only need specifiy the time and area that the offence took place. edit: And the general nature of the offence - eg. exceeding speed limit, failure to obey sign/signal.

2) Depending on the speed, the driver is either sent a Fixed Penalty Notice or if the speed limit was greatly exceeded (usually more than 30mph over) then the offence must be heard in court. The fixed penalty is £60 and 3 points on the licence (limit of 12 within a three year window, otherwise you get banned for 6 months)

If the registered keeper fails to name the driver they usually get 3 points and a fine, but if you can show that you did not know who the driver was and couldn't find out with "reasonable diligence" you shouldn't be prosecuted. The "safety camera partnerships" however play a game of threatening people so that often they take the points+fine even though they weren't driving - this is however an offence in itself!

It is very complex and I have left out some details, and there are quite a few other methods people are trying to legally frustrate the system - see the above links for more info.

Gareth


Edited by g_attrill (22/10/2004 16:30)