A Surrey man has been disqualified from driving for speeding on the motorway.
Such a common occurrence would barely register, were it not for the comments I made yesterday about the perils of drawing full conclusions from only partial reporting.
This is a good example of superficial and selective court reporting. Unintentional, I'm sure, but it fails to present the full circumstances of both offender and offence. Given the non-specific nature of the article it is possible it has been written entirely on the basis of printed court results, instead of the journalist actually being present in court.
Steven Seymour, 55, of Burdenshot Road, Worplesdon, admitted speeding when he appeared at Southampton Magistrates' Court last week.
Speeding is an offence contrary to section 89(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. It is a summary offence with a maximum penalty of a fine at level 3 (£1,000 maximum), which increases to a fine of level 4 (£2,500 maximum) for offences committed on the motorway.
The article has failed to mention, but it is almost certain this offence was dealt with in the defendant's absence under the Single Justice Procedure. It being speeding, it would normally be a Police Led Prosecution.
Anyhow, Seymour's Jaguar was clocked at a speed of 89 mph on the M27 near Fareham on Thursday, 22nd September 2022. A speed limit of 70 mph was in force at the time.
Having read those details my first thought is that disqualification is pretty unlikely for exceeding the speed limit by such a margin. Don't get me wrong, speeding is a serious matter, but you get many, many people before the court for speeds far higher than that on the motorway.
The article continues to say that he was disqualified for a period of 6 months AND received 3 penalty points.
Such a combination does not come naturally for speeding (extract of relevant guideline shown above), so there must be another factor that the article has failed to mention - totting up.
Totting up can only be a factor if Seymour already had points on his licence - e.g. he did not have a clean driving record when convicted of this offence, which the article omits to mention.
Seymour was fined £58 and ordered to pay £23 surcharge and £110 towards prosecution costs.
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