Early Saturday morning, just de-iced the car side windows a little steamed up pulled out from our side with impaired vision not seeing a car coming towards me doing 20MPH on the main road until I am too far out, so I accelerate to prevent an accident. Fortunately she slowed down so there was no incident. Now here is the best bit, I did this all in front of a Police car! He has done a U-Turn and catches up to me so I pull over, switch off my engine, get out the car and walk over to them. Admit to my stupidity and the fact that parked cars and misted side widows impaired my vision. Long chat with them (20 mins) and they finally get around to the charge: Reckless driving. I felt this was a bit harsh but swallowed it. Due to the fact that my license was clean the car was in good condition, they are going to advise that I am put on the ELVIS scheme rather than being charged. This is where you have to do an advanced/refresher training course and pass.

For the next few days I am reviewing in my head what went wrong, I feel it was more driving without due care rather than reckless, but it wasn

 

I'd be very surprised if the CPS would bother pursuing this one. Were there any other witnesses other than the police? (Not always necessary, but may make the CPS more inclined to drop it if it's just your word against theirs.)

If they put you on the ELVIS scheme, wouldn't this mean no points or fine?

Reckless driving does seem a bit harsh.

I'm sure one the legal beagles will be along soon to correct everything I've written!

Good luck!

 

Speaking from a position of very little knowledge.. I thought that where they offered you a course it was instead of the fine, but you still got the points? Not sure this is a general thing or just in the cases I had heard of.

If it is a case of the course or the points and fine then the course is clearly a good thing and should be worth looking foward to. I have just done a refresher day with Drive and Survive for company car purposes and it was a good day spent driving and some time in a skid car

Good luck!

 

If the Police saw it they don't need other witnesses. try getting Magistrates to disbelieve a Policeman.

The Police won't prosecute on the uncorroborated evidence of one person.

As for the "charge" reckless seems a bit OTT. It sounds "careless". Do you have the number of the other driver. Their reaction might be interesting.

 

Not the case I'm afraid. Police witnesses are presumed to be professional, accurate and unbiased, unless the contrary is shown under cross examination. The evidence of one policeman would be more than sufficient in these circumstances but with two police witnesses I wouldn't hold out much hope of CPS dropping this one! I used to liaise with CPS every morning over files, so I'm pretty familiar with their approach.

On the circumstances you describe though 'reckless' seems a little harsh, but I would imagine the logic is that you continued to drive reckless to the fact you couldn't see out of the window. CPS might want to drop it to Due Care, but why not have a word with a solicitor? It's possible the court would accept a plea to Due Care rather than have a contested matter on the Reckess Driving.

Good luck anyway.

 

You're obviously a hardened motorised criminal like this guy and should be thrown in prison for your crimes against fellow motorists.

 

My understanding of the scheme (didn't know it was called ELVIS) is that you take the test to avoid the points. Still likely to pay a fine tho'.

Good luck and keep us posted.

If prosecuted, can you ASK for the ELVIS scheme instead of points? I'd take an advanced/refresher course over 3 points any day.

 

I thought you could be charged only with "careless" or "dangerous" driving

This sort of thing has probably happened to most of us (certainly to me), and I suppose on reflection it is careless driving - maybe they interpreted your accelerating to avoid the accident as the dangerous part? If you do end up in court on this charge you could argue (as was the case) that the acceleration was to prevent an accident.

It's just bad luck that the Polis were there , but I suppose if it happened to me and the person I nearly hit did make a complaint, I would fee I had to take it on the chin as careless driving (but certainly not dangerous IMHO).

Frustrating that you see driving incidents every day (many much worse than this) but there are never normally plods around to do anything about them

 

RobM got pulled for Reckless on the way to XM1 - Dont know what happened to him, but the police said something similar. Different circumstances, but similar principle I think.

Dont know what happened to Rob?

 

I believe he was banged up for 25 years in solitary or something like that...

Seriously, I was still wandering about that myself when I read this. I guess that things like that can take a while to be processed so probs still waiting..