I understand
the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 is says:
1. The NIP MUST reach you within 14 days. (Remember that this 14-day limit starts from the commission of the alleged offence, so late "reminder" NIPs are just that, LATE.)
2. The Act says that "a notice shall be deemed for the purposes of subsection (1)(c) above to have been served on a person if it was sent by registered post or recorded delivery service..." In other words, if it's not sent recorded delivery, it's not deemed to have been sent, because they have no independent proof.
The Act seems precise: it lays down a non-negotiable 14-day limit and requires the NIP to be sent recorded delivery. Are they're expecting us not to have looked at the actual wording of the legislation...
Or has the law been amended?
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>In other words, if it's not sent recorded
> delivery, it's not deemed to have been sent, because they
> have no independent proof.
Actually, not quite. If it is not sent recorded delivery it is not deemed to have been RECEIVED.
The point being that proof of recorded dispatch is regarded as proof of receipt even if you say you didn't receive it.
Proof of receipt can be approached in other ways - handed to you by a policeman, you admit you received it, postman swears on oath he handed it to you, etc. etc. etc.
Since the important thing is that you received it, not that it was sent, they were always running into people who refused to sign for any mail, or collect any mail and tehrefore proved to be somewhat difficult to prosecute. The amendment to use recorded delivery as acceptable proof that it was received came into being in the early 70s.
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Mark (Brazil) is correct with his various permutations of the definition of received.
The speedtrap.bible website is very useful here, it gives details of the "correct" NIP procedure and cases where plod have tried to extort and failed.
as ever
Mark
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by the way, I wasn't clear on one thing....
Recorded Delivery and Registered Mail are different in that one doesn't require a signature as proof of delivery. Nonetheless, it is still deemed as proof of such.
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crazed idiot wrote:
>
> I understand
>
> the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 is says:
>
> 1. The NIP MUST reach you within 14 days.
Bear in mind if you're done by a policeman rather than a camera the NIP will be delivered by him *verbally* there and then...
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Actually it apparently doesn't have to reach the DRIVER within 14 days, as one of my colleagues with a company car found out a couple of years back. Booked by a Gatso, the NIP went initially to the OWNER (the lease company) who passed it on to her as the car user. She got it outside the 14 days and thought she was OK. No luck; despite the best efforts of our legal section reading the rules, the fact it reached the owner within the 14 days was enough!
Cheers
John
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Not to add anything to the debate re NIP's but just a tip in case you have some important documents to send through the post.
Recorded Delivery is just that, nothing else. Until it gets to the delivery office it is treated like all the other mail, so if its gets lost all you know is that it did not get delivered. Very helpful...not. Had a big barney with a Chinese bank about such an issue which went astray. Fortunately we got our dosh in the end. But Passports to the Passport Office, no thank you.
If you have something to send which you really do not want lost the Special Delivery service is best, its tracked from your fair hand to the destination, plus you can have insurance and its not too expensive either..
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