Not Guilty Sections 170 Road Traffic Act 1988

Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 confers certain obligations on the driver of a motor vehicle in the event of an accident to give details and / or report the matter to the Police as soon as reasonably practicable. These cases often involve scenarios where a driver claims he did not know that there had been an accident. It is important to note that the court’s consideration of these cases will also involve am assessment of whether a driver should have been aware that there may have been an accident. These charges carry a high end endorsement, ranging from 5-10 penalty points, and can also involve discretionary disqualification.

This particular case was set down for trial in Stirling Justice of the Peace Court in November 2017. Having considered the evidence in the case, it became clear that the Crown lacked a sufficiency in terms of proving our client was driving the vehicle at the material time. There had been a verbal s.172 request – that is where the Police ask an accused to say who was driving – with a positive response from our client, but nothing else. The Crown sought to corroborate the admission by reference to the CCTV evidence obtained from the locus. The Police claimed that the accused could be identified from the footage. This was a rather exotic position (being kind) and, having viewed the CCTV footage pre-trial and in the presence of the Crown, the matter was treated as ‘not called’ on the basis that there was an insufficiency of evidence.