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Hi there, have today received the NIP that I was captured doing 51mph in a 30. I have just turned 50 and this is my first offence of this nature since I started driving at the age of 21. (I have had a couple of minor penalty notices like driving down a bus lane and parking on the zigzags of a pedestrian crossing which I assume do not count in relation to this and certainly happened enough years ago that my licence is currently clean)
I suffer terribly from anxiety so I say this not to use in my defence for speeding, but to justify the upcoming questions as any clarity on this helps me manage my anxiety much better.


I have a few questions about the specifics of the situation, that I assume will make no difference, but feel I have to ask someone and having discovered this forum, I suspect, its better I do it here than anywhere formal during proceedings:
1)
I was pulling out of a parking area for a local park, onto a main road, on the outskirts of my town.
I was flashed by a driver to go ahead of them, who in response to being so nice, as I pulled out, I accelerated hard to try not to delay their progress too much.
As I accelerated I saw the police and the mobile camera and albeit braking quickly, new I was likely caught speeding.
Based on the photos I have seen though I am amazed I got to 51mph. It was literally only a couple of seconds if that (the images show the walled car park in the background that I had just left and so I am still passing it and thus can evidence that I am within 100-150m or so of that exit) Anyway I absolutely suspected I may have been caught but as alluded I felt it was more like 35-40mph I was guilty of doing.
I am absolutely willing to put my hands up and accept I am guilty of speeding and clearly I am in the wrong and was unable to accurately judge the acceleration of my car and that is all on me but it was only momentarily as opposed to a consistent stretch or continually exceeding the speed limit if I was being followed down a motorway for example. The images don't convey this and I guess that's because its not relevant but having never been in anything like this situation before, I wanted to be sure that was the case, by mentioning it here.
My question really is whether, at any point, this information I have detailed is relevant and might be of any use?
I suspect not based on the research I have done on this site and other official sources but as 51mph is a significant threshold I wondered whether it might have helped reduce or mitigate the circumstances and avoid a court summons, which is apparently the most likely outcome.
For example not that money is the most important factor here but its the difference between £100 fine and a likely £1000 fine based on my salary.

2) Based on the above admittedly being trivial to the overall act of speeding, but nevertheless, where and when or how could I convey this? I didn't see much on the NIP or on the website (you go to, to identify yourself, which I have done straight away). I am mindful from what I have read that appearing to claim 'not guilty' or attempt to provide 'mitigation' likely creates far more issues than it potentially could ever avoid so I'd only want to add this info in the hope of the outcome being lessened, not to avoid accepting guilt as a whole. I note that there is an email address for 'Contact' on the NIP to the Camera Ticket Office but I assume this is not a 'relevant' department worth communicating with regarding the above?

3) Whilst reviewing the calibration certificates (the West Mercia Police site suggests this is almost mandatory by including it in the checklist of actions you should complete otherwise I'm not sure I would have even looked) I noticed that the final distance it is stated as 'passing' or being valid is 150m. I then noticed that the photos of me were taken at a distance of 155m. Is this at all relevant in questioning the validity of the offence? If this was a simple £100 fine and 3 points say at 45 mph I wouldn't even be posting on here but based on the speed I was caught at, it feels like there are so many more potentially worrying outcomes including a ban, albeit probably only brief that I need to be so much more prepared.
I also need to be able to drive for my job, but I am not claiming this as relevant in anyway to the outcome by the Police, but my employer might not take kindly to a ban of any duration so I worry I might be obligated to contest this purely on the grounds that remaining employed is more important to me than the risk of what pleading not guilty might lead to.

4) I have seen numerous references to the maximum fine being capped at £1000 unless its on a motorway. Does this include the surcharge and prosecution costs or can these take it over that figure?

Please again note that I have seen many of the responses on this site through the posts I have already read and I do understand most of the above is likely futile and maybe even construed as a waste of time, but by writing it all out like this, its helping me process it and thus helping me control my anxiety to a degree.
In short I'm asking for a small bit of tolerance if anything is stupid, futile or simply waffle.
Thanks for any responses ahead of time, I really do appreciate them and am so glad there was somewhere I could come to gain more clarity and seek advice.

My question really is whether, at any point, this information I have detailed is relevant and might be of any use?
I suspect not ...

You are correct in that the short answer to your question is "no".

You are correct in that the short answer to your question is "no".

And so is the long answer.

Nothing you have said provides anything by way of a defence. If you want to cast doubt on the accuracy of the device, you will need expert assistance to do that, which you will have to pay for. As well as that, your own acceptance that you were exceeding the speed limit makes that rather pointless, although of course if the court accepted a lower speed the sentence would be lighter.

There is rarely anything that will mitigate a speeding offence and certainly nothing you have mentioned does. You may also like to reconsider your recollection of the details of the incident.  You said you were detected only a couple of seconds after pulling out and that you had travelled 100-150m in that time. If you travelled 100m in two seconds you would have averaged over 110mph from a standing start!

As well as that, there are not many road cars that can reach 50mph in two seconds. This, of course, may help your argument that you could not have been travelling at that speed. But it is far more likely, I think that your recollection of the event was not accurate in terms of distance travelled and/or time taken.

Your case will be handled under the “Single Justice Procedure”. This involves a single justice (a magistrate) sitting alone assisted by a Legal Advisor in an office. Nobody else can attend. Those proceedings will begin with the issue of a “Single Justice Procedure Notice” which will be sent to you. The police have six months to do this and in many areas they take all of that time.

You will be asked to respond to that notice and you will have three options:

1.To plead guilty and have the matter dealt with by the single justice.
2.To plead guilty and request a court hearing which you can attend.
3.To plead not guilty.

The guidance for that speed suggests either a ban of up to 56 days or six points. The overwhelming likelihood is six points. However, if the SJ considers a ban should be considered, that will not be imposed by the SJ. Instead your case will be adjourned to a hearing in the normal magistrates’ court and you will be asked to attend.

Quoting from NewJudge above: "As well as that, there are not many road cars that can reach 50mph in two seconds. This, of course, may help your argument that you could not have been travelling at that speed. But it is far more likely, I think that your recollection of the event was not accurate in terms of distance travelled and/or time taken."

I did wonder how you could have achieved 0 to 51 mph in under 2 seconds. Maybe retrace your steps to see how far you actually did travel. 150m equals 12 buses.

May I also offer a word of advice, that it's not good practice to read headlight flashing as anything but a signal to warn you of the presence of another vehicle. Have a look in the highway code.

So just to respond to the distance thing that's been mentioned a couple of times -  I fully acknowledge that i may have made some misjudgements in my descriptions on here over this matter but already sensing the information and details on this were going to be irrelevant and not worth focusing on too much, I didn't spend a lot of my time whilst compiling the initial post on ensuring this element was mathematically accurate. I'm surprised its garnered the attention it has but suffice to say I went from '0' to '51' mph very rapidly through my acceleration and I did so in a very short distance (the exact distance being somewhere between 0metres and however long the front wall of the car park is because thats where the photo of me doing 51 mph was taken and also because the speed camera van as it has also turned out locates itself in the same spot regularly (its on the google map image right now of the location).
I would go to the bother of sharing the screenshots of the location and of the photo taken by the van but as has been established through the really helpful posts above from everyone (thanks again if your reading this) it really makes no difference to how I will need to act or what I can expect to happen.
My primary reason for even mentioning it was to bring focus on the brevity of my time at such a speed as opposed to other situations where the excessive speed is likely high and maintained for a longer duration. If that brevity might in someway go towards being deemed mitigation, however minor, against a harsher punishment then I would like to know how best to take that forwards. Again as has been made clear it doesn't matter if i was doing 51mph for 10 miles at 30 mph or 10m - I have broken the law and the law judges in a consistent way that does not include this factor.
However out of interest I have since establish through the picture that the distance

With regards to the car flashing its headlights - something that really has no relevance here and thus I'm not sure its adding much value, I find it hard to believe that in the same situation, if you were flashed by a car, whilst waiting to pull out of a junction or driveway etc, you would ignore it and wait for the vehicle (which has now stopped to let you out and is holding up traffic behind it in doing so), to restart its journey and pass by.
I am fully aware that this does not in anyway constitute any sort of defense as to why I was speeding at 51 mph, but it merely provided context as to how I acted following such a circumstance. I will for sure now need to re-assess my driving behavior but the mistake here was wholly down to the lack of control in my rate of acceleration, against the assigned speed limit in that location and its one I am going to learn a mighty harsh lesson over.

Unfortunately the simple fact is you have exceeded the speed limit. It's fairly clean-cut. The mitigation or whatever has little effect on the outcome, how fast you were going does have a major impact. Others will tell you what the threshold is for 3 points, 6points, and a ban.

Having experienced the speed awareness course a few times (yes, I get nicked every 3 years, usually at silly o clock at night when the roads are empty) so am au fait with how it works. I've also seen the "flashing headlights" videos on those courses as well as on the Driver CPC course that I have to tk every 5 years to keep my psv licence going. I've also been the victim of flashing headlights twice, where I've been on a lain road with right of way, there's been something coming out of a side road, oncoming car has flashed, and cor from side road (40 tonne tipper truck on one occasion) has pulled out and bang. Sorry I can't be of more help. Good luck.

Suspect this will be merged with the original thread, creating new threads for an existing case is frowned upon.

...and like by magic...

Going to court is probably a waste of everyone's time. Sentencing is pretty formulaic, so unless there's any other aggravating circumstances (like you trying to excuse your own behaviour when replying then the sentence is likely to be as previously described.

A regular speeding offence is a non-recordable offence, so won't show up on a criminal records check, and does not need to be declared on ESTA (read what it says, it's asking about crimes of deception/dishonesty)