Dangerous Driving Dumfries Sheriff Court

Our client was charged with dangerous driving contrary to section 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The gravamen of the charge was that he had overtaken unsafely causing other road users to apply their brakes to avoid a collision. Our client was a thoroughly nice chap and both he and his wife (who was a passenger at the time) denied that the incident had occurred as described by the police.

We were instructed to defend the charge of dangerous driving and to try and seek resolution with a plea to the lesser charge of careless driving (contrary to section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988). 

We reviewed all of the evidence in the case and had a long telephone consultation with our client (who lived a considerable distance from both of our offices) to discuss the evidence in the case. 

Effectively what had happened was that our client had began to overtake a slower moving vehicle and during the course of the overtake had become aware of police officers carrying out speed detection duties (standing with a speed gun pointing towards him). This led him to hesitate slightly and what should have been a straight-forward overtake became careless due to the inadvertent intervention of the police who were there to promote safer driving! 

The situation was explained to three different prosecutors and finally it was accepted that the driving was careless as opposed to dangerous. 

A plea to careless driving was agreed in advance of the trial and our client's licence was endorsed with 5 penalty points and he was fined £360. 

This case was dealt with by our Mr Simpson on 23rd February 2018 at Dumfries Sheriff Court. 

 Kept Licence!