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OK, just to bring everything up to speed and sign off on this post. I got a call form the original owner a short while ago to say that they were still receiving letters from TfL. It turns out that they have been corresponding with them to transfer liability but it was finally rejected as they were unable to provide any proof of sale (and the transfer of ownership via the V5C did not go through originally as expected and was done retrospectively after the fine and back-dated to before the fine). This could have been organised easily enough, at any rate to knock it on the head and save any further hoo-ha, I have paid the fine for 'them' lol.
TfL correspondence to original owner below:

Hi,

I just received a NIP for doing 38mph in a 30 zone (infringement date being 01/08/24). It's the first I've ever received in the UK over the several decades that I have lived here on and off.  I'm not looking to try to get off the penalty (though I wouldn't say no to that either) as I accept that I was over the limit, however I am interested to understand how the protocol for assessing speed via a mobile speed camera works.

I have been travelling through this village road close to where I live for the past 13 years and most of the motorbike-cop speed traps have been visible at the side of the road down one end or the other of the long, straight section of the road. At one end the road continues straight in to National Speed Limit (NSL)(60mph) on exit; there is a slight incline just before the sign. Usually I apply a bit of acceleration at this part which is only about 15m or so before the NSL sign. Recently a new speed-cop had been operating from in front or behind a hedge at this juncture (depending on your direction of travel) about 8m before the NSL where there is a small, village hall parking area. I had spotted him from the opposite direction on a few occasions (though I'm not travelling everyday through there), and couple of times in traffic going going out the village hall end. However, on this day I had been driving along the side of the road closest to where he would be operating and along hedgerows and did not see any sign of him or his tripod camera most of the way until I came level with the village hall where I had just applied some juice for the incline short of the NSL sign and suddenly he appeared just metres away tucked in to the carpark hedge a few meteres in, about 7m opposite the village hall. I immediately slapped the anchors on as I didn't know how much my speed may have been over on my gauge as I had only just applied the accelerator and the needle hadn't stabilised, but I saw it drop to 25mph, before passing him and hitting the NSL.

I haven't registered as the driver yet, as I will probably get a speed awareness course offer and my (recently acquired) car packed in just 2 days ago (with a concentric clutch slave cylinder giving up) and I had to get it towed home where I'll need to repair it myself over the coming week or so, and I don't know when I'll be mobile again to attend such a course so I'm holding off initially.

Anyway I was wondering about how the speed determination is made by the camera. Is it an instantaneous read or does there need to be a continuous read for a time period (like 2 secs) in order to determine speed and not record spurious variations such as change in the point of reflection on a car surface that may occur from movement of the car relative to the measuring beam that may cause the it to instantly jump in distance measured, such as from bonnet to bumper - or is this never really a practical issue, and would an instantaneous reading give a reliable indicator of speed? If anyone knows that can tell me how it works?

The seller seems to be reluctant to make representations?

I'm not sure. I tried to clarify the point on my chat with him, by saying 'I knew you (he) had done the V5C ownership again online but not the PCN' and 'I guess I'll just wait now for them to send it to me now
..unfortunately ..' to which he replied 'yeah..' So I think I've done what I can for now I think - I have a V5C now backdated to 31/05/24

They are quite likely to get in a right mess. The fact that they were not the RK becomes utterly irrelevant.

I guess the re-applied and backdated V5C will not flag up in TfL's system at this point

At the moment you can choose to pay it (anybody can pay) but don't feel minded to do so because you hope to challenge because of the payment difficulties.

If it's worth the bother to challenge on grounds of confusion based on the payment issues then I will wait

You have nothing, yet, to make representations against.

Hopefully it will all come out in the wash in due course

---

I guess it's a waiting game at this stage

Hi,

I received a PCN from TfL for ULEZ for 24/06/24 after visiting my folks for the long weekend. Or more precisely I was just informed by a phone call from the person I had recently bought a car from (about 6 weeks ago) that they had received this PCN. We determined that change of ownership which was done online at the time of purchase had some not been processed by the DVLA, and the seller immediately went online to do another transfer of ownership backdated and sent me the confirmation, along with a copy of the front page of the fine which was issued on the 03/70/24 - giving 'me' 14 days (until 19/07/24 according to the PCN) in order to keep the 'discounted' fee. After I sent a chat message back to the buyer saying that I might try to ask for help on a forum, but would redact the address info first (his/partner's info) and that I might need the other pages but I'd let him know, he removed the screenshot of it, so I don't know if he will be willing to provide the rest (though it would probably be standard with other ULEZ fines)

My question is should this be reissued in my name before any payment is made, and would this become automatic if the change of ownership has been made in the database covering that period? In addition I had thought I had made the payment for that journey the day before when I when I had attempted to pay for my for my inbound journey made two days earlier. I had no end of trouble getting the payments to be processed correctly through the TfL Android phone App and tried 3 different bank account cards I had, I ended getting a confirmation on the final attempt and then discovered 2 pending payments in one of my accounts which I then had to spend an inordinate amount of time communicating with the bank trying to find out the procedure to rectify it, which required sending a message to TfL to get a whole of specific details for the bank to allow these pending transactions to be cancelled. Anyway, as a result with everything else that I had going on I didn't remember to check back if I had actually made the outgoing purchase for the following day. Eventually TfL got back to me about the payment on the 26/06/24 simply saying: 'Thank you for your correspondence received on 23 June 2024 regarding payments.
Please be advised that pending transactions are not official payments as we have not received the payment.
We would advise for you to contact your bank if you have made a payment and we have not received it, so they can
investigate the situation further for you.' ..which ignored any of the requests the bank had made🤨

At which point it triggered my thoughts about the outbound payment which I thought I'd made amongst the confusion of the payment process as it had been recommended by my folks to do so, so I wouldn't forget. When I discovered it wasn't paid I wrote a message to TfL on their App about the situation described above and of course have heard nothing back. I guess there's probably no chance of them considering an appeal; I got one when ULEZ first came in (I've 'used' it only 3 times since) and back then signs were not easily seen (nor understandable) and I live far out of London and did not hear of anything about it having been implemented - I received a fine that I challenged pointing out that the signs (which I later saw from some streetview photos) for any newly arrived visitors from overseas would be indecipherable as well, and they dismissed me out of hand.

Thanks in advance