Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hello,

I would really appreciate some advice regarding a Single Justice Procedure Notice I have recently received.

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle and my V5C address has always been correct and unchanged.

The SJP notice arrived on 24 February 2026 and requires a response by 17 March. This was the first correspondence I have received about any of the alleged offences.

The notice relates to two separate alleged speeding incidents investigated by West Yorkshire Police. For each incident there are two charges:

• Speeding
• Failure to identify the driver (Section 172)

I did not receive any earlier correspondence relating to either incident. I never received the original Notice of Intended Prosecution or the request to identify the driver, so I never had the opportunity to respond.

Incident 1 – September 2025
This relates to an alleged speed of 36mph in a 30mph limit.

This offence could potentially have been me driving, but it also could have been my husband. We have both tried to think back and check our paper diary but we genuinely cannot remember who was driving that day. We both regularly drive that route as it leads to a friend’s house that our children visit frequently, so either of us could realistically have been using the car.

The alleged offence is now nearly six months ago which makes it difficult to recall the specific journey.

I do know that the road in question has yellow box fixed speed cameras. It is a hilly road where vehicles naturally pick up speed on the descent, so it is somewhere I am usually conscious of slowing and braking near the bottom because I know the cameras are there.

Incident 2 – January 2026
This relates to an alleged speed of 35mph in a 30mph limit.

In this case I am confident that I was not the driver. I have text messages from that day showing that I was at home messaging my husband while he was out with our son doing back-to-school / holiday preparation shopping. I was sending instructions from home while he was out with the car, so based on the timing of those messages I am confident he was the one using the vehicle.

Another point which makes this situation more confusing is that something very similar happened to my husband last year. He received a Single Justice Procedure Notice months after an alleged speeding offence without ever receiving the earlier Notice of Intended Prosecution or driver identification request.

In that case he pleaded guilty to the speeding but not guilty to the Section 172 charge by post. A couple of months later we received a short letter saying the case had been dismissed. He never had to attend court, pay anything or receive any points.

Because of that experience, I am sure that the original notices may not have been successfully sent/delivered. Though we get all our normal post and have previously recieved things absolutely fine.

Another important factor is that I currently already have 9 points on my licence, so this situation is a bit more concerning to me. Because of that I have been particularly careful with my driving.

I have never previously failed to respond to official correspondence and have always complied with any requests from authorities. I rely heavily on my driving licence as we live outside practical public transport links and I have four children whose school and childcare arrangements require driving.

For that reason it simply makes no sense that I would deliberately ignore a legal notice requesting driver information.

My current understanding is that I may be able to plead not guilty to the Section 172 charges on the basis that the notices were never received. However I am unsure what the best strategy is regarding the speeding allegations given that:

• the September driver could have been either myself or my husband
• the January driver was definitely not me
• I never received the original notices requesting driver identification
I have therefore also never seen proof or evidence or the offences. Putting my car there or if its more details (my husband got photographed a few years back now by a van and you could clearly see it was him, a man in the car not me, that's how we knew)

If it ultimately came to it and points were imposed taking me over the totting threshold, which I know is a separate thing, and I think I would attend court and present an exceptional hardship argument as losing my licence would have a significant impact on my family. And I know friends who have managed to do this.  However my aim at this stage is simply to understand the best legal approach and whether there is any way this matter could potentially be dismissed given that the first correspondence received was the SJP itself. Especially after similar with my husband last year.

I would be very grateful for any advice on the best way to proceed.