What Is The Time Limit for A Notice of Intended Prosecution?
NIP orNotice of Intended ProsecutionWhat is it, what it means, how it affects you?Offences requiring notification of prosecution.Under Section 1 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 there are various road traffic offences which require the police to give you notice of the fact that you may be prosecuted. These offences include:Careless & Inconsiderate drivingLeaving a vehicle in a dangerous placeDangerous cyclingCareless & Inconsiderate cyclingFailing to conform with the indication of a police officer when directing trafficFailing to comply with a traffic signExceeding temporary speed restrictions imposed by s 14 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984Exceeding speed restrictions on a special roadExceeding temporary speed limit imposed by orderSpeeding offences generallyMethods of Notice of Intended Prosecution.As far as alerting persons to any alleged offence, notice can be given by different means. It can be done by way of a summons served on the offender within 14 days of commission of the offence or by a notice of intended prosecution (NIP). The Notice of intended prosecution or NIP can either be given verbally at the time of the incident or in writing (i.e. if you get a ticket from a speed camera) and must be received within 14 days of the offence (or dispatched so that it would reach the driver within the 14 days within the ordinary course of the post). Service of a notice at the last known address of the accused will suffice for good service.  No notice is required if a full or provisional fixed penalty notice has been given or fixed (under the Provisions of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988) or if there is an accident involving the vehicle in question (of which the driver is aware). Notice of Intended Prosecution.So what exactly is a written NIP? In essence the Notice of Intended Prosecution is a document that specifies the nature of the offence and the time and place it is alleged to have been committed. It requires the keeper to provide the police with the name of the person who was driving the vehicle at the time of the alleged motoring offence. Providing this information is a legal obligation under Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act (RTA). If the keeper is uncertain who was driving their vehicle they may still guilty of an offence unless they either provide the name of the driver or .  Failure to provide the relevant information may result in prosecution and the punishment could be worse than for the speeding offence. Certain exceptions do apply however where it can be shown that the keeper did not know and could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained who the driver of the vehicle was (S172.4). When it is best not to provide details of the driver Essentially, if you do not inform the authorities who was driving you cannot be prosecuted for the offence. In effect this means that you can only be prosecuted for NOT informing the authorities who was driving your vehicle, an offence which attracts a maximum penalty of 6 points and £1000 fine. With that in mind an instance where it may be in the keepers best interest to abstain from supplying any details to the police (and essentially contravene s172) would be where the keeper of the vehicle committed a dangerous driving offence by, for example, driving at speeds in excess of 100mph.  Dangerous driving offences carry much harsher penalties, namely a minimum 12 month driving ban and up to 6 months imprisonment, and as a result it may be wiser in these type of cases to opt for the less onerous penalties incurred for a s172 contravention.NIP and Limited CompaniesA NIP can also be issued to limited companies and the requirement of disclosure is is also obligatory. The requires the keeper of the vehicle to identify the driver. Subsection (3) makes it an offence for the keeper to fail to comply. Subsection (4) provides a defence if the Keeper shows that he did not know who the driver was and could not have found out by using "reasonable diligence". However under Subsection (6) the company must prove that as well as not being able to identify the driver using 'reasonable diligence' it must show that it did not keep a record of who was driving the vehicle and that the failure to keep such records was reasonable. This is an onerous test to pass as it is generally fairly easy for a company to have a system in place which identifies the driver of a company vehicle at any given time, for example a log book kept in the vehicle which allows any drivers to enter the details of his or her journey. If the company did have such a system but it didn't work on a particular occasion that might suffice as a defenc