(D) Innocent Motorists to pay court costs

[catyak]

OK, one for Brits to get annoyed about.

The Telegraph has an article on it here.

Drivers will fall victim to reforms which will see people who are acquitted by the courts expected to foot the majority of their own defence costs. It is thought some innocent motorists will plead guilty to reduce their costs. There's a petition on the No.10

Comments

[arnhem]

I find it depressing that it's being portrayed as a motorist thing. It isn't.

[catyak]

It appears that they'll pay whatever legal aid would pay towards your costs. So you might get 25% of your bill paid, or if it's something for which legal aid is not available, you get stuck with all of it.

I think we all need to generate spurious cases against Labour MPs and then let them pick up the bill. That would change their minds.

D

[catyak]

Most people are more likely to come up against it as a motorist, and if you can stir a million people to sign a petition on that basis then it's worth using that as a means to achieve the result. I first saw it as a motorist-based hit, it was only after further reading that I discovered that it's much wider ranging.

[allyphoe]

People in the UK spend 2000GBP to defend against a *speeding ticket*? I guess it makes sense if winning means the rest of society pays it for you. Traffic court in the US is almost invariably pro se, since it's cheaper to pay the fine than to get an attorney to even show up to request a hearing date. WRT traffic tickets, the only people I've ever met who were "convinced of their innocence" were basing said "innocence" on theories like "radar detectors don't really work" and "the speed limit shouldn't be that low on that road anyhow."

I do wish the US had a system whereby folks facing jail time didn't have to pay an attorney if they were acquitted.

[allyphoe]

Speeding tickets here are linked to the person, not to the car. So if I'm driving your car too fast, it's me who gets the ticket, not you.

I think parking fines are the only things that are linked to your car, and pay parking in city-owned spaces is relatively uncommon in my part of the US - not enough to merit forged plates. At a commercial lot, they'd just boot your car, and a forged plate wouldn't help you.

[catyak]

When you have enforcement using speed cameras, they take a picture of the car including the number plate, so at that point they don't know who was driving. As such, the initial ticket goes to the registered keeper who can either take the hit or tell them who was actually driving. Or challenge on the basis that it wasn't even his car.

D