{"id":9584,"date":"2017-01-27T14:39:33","date_gmt":"2017-01-27T14:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=9584"},"modified":"2017-01-27T14:49:13","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T14:49:13","slug":"speeding-drivers-face-tougher-penalties-from-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/9584","title":{"rendered":"Speeding drivers face tougher penalties from April"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speeding fines are set to get tougher in\u00a0April, and van\u00a0drivers could face harsher sentencing\u00a0as a result of their professions.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9588\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/vosa-police-van-enforcement-stop-med.jpg\" alt=\"A VOSA\/Police checkpoint\" width=\"650\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/vosa-police-van-enforcement-stop-med.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/vosa-police-van-enforcement-stop-med-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/vosa-police-van-enforcement-stop-med-624x416.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/vosa-police-van-enforcement-stop-med-50x33.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The penalties for driving while using a phone have\u00a0also been increased.\u00a0Offenders will receive a compulsory 6 points and \u00a3200 fine.<\/p>\n<p>The new\u00a0guidelines have been issued by\u00a0the\u00a0Sentencing Council,\u00a0whose role it to provide\u00a0sentencing guidelines for the courts in England and Wales.<\/p>\n<p>There will be several major areas of change:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tougher penalties for speeding with mandatory points and temporary disqualfication<\/li>\n<li>Speeding fines for most serious offences increased from 100% to 150% of weekly income, although the upper limit remain fixed at \u00a31,000 or \u00a32,500 on a motorway.<\/li>\n<li>The court will consider aggravating factors, such as whether the offender is a licenced professional driver from whom higher standards should be expected. Other examples of\u00a0aggravating factors include\u00a0bad weather and being near a school.<\/li>\n<li>The penalty for driving while on the phone will be doubled to \u00a3200 and six points, with no option to avoid points by taking a driver education course<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a summary of the new\u00a0sentencing bands for speeding offences. Note the more severe penalties for serious speeding (the second column):<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th width=\"142\"><strong>Speed limit (mph)<\/strong><\/th>\n<th colspan=\"3\" width=\"426\"><strong>Recorded speed (mph)<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"142\">20<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">41 and above<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">31 \u2013 40<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">21 \u2013 30<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"142\">30<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">51 and above<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">41 \u2013 50<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">31 \u2013 40<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"142\">40<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">66 and above<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">56 \u2013 65<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">41 \u2013 55<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"142\">50<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">76 and above<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">66 \u2013 75<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">51 \u2013 65<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"142\">60<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">91 and above<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">81 \u2013 90<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">61 \u2013 80<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"142\">70<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">101 and above<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">91 \u2013 100<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">71 \u2013 90<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th width=\"142\">Sentencing range<\/th>\n<th width=\"142\">Band C fine (125-175% of relevant weekly income*)<\/th>\n<th width=\"142\">Band B fine (75-125% of relevant weekly income*)<\/th>\n<th width=\"142\">Band A fine (25-75% of relevant weekly income*)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th width=\"142\">Points\/disqualification<\/th>\n<td width=\"142\">Disqualify 7 \u2013 56 days <strong>OR<\/strong> 6 points<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">Disqualify 7 \u2013 28<br \/>\ndays <strong>OR<\/strong>\u00a0 4 \u2013 6 points<\/td>\n<td width=\"142\">3 points<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><em>Source: Sentencing Council (https:\/\/www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk\/offences\/item\/speeding-revised-2017\/)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>*Upper limit remains unchanged at \u00a31,000 or \u00a32,500 on a motorway.<\/p>\n<p>The Sentencing Council&#8217;s goal with these changes is to\u00a0<em>&#8220;to ensure that there is clear increase in penalty as the seriousness of offending increases&#8221;.\u00a0<\/em>The point here is that the risk of injury to pedestrians or other drivers rises dramatically with speed.<\/p>\n<p>According to road crash victim support charity RoadPeace, the chance of killing a pedestrian in a 20mph speed limit rises from 1% at the speed limit to 83% at 41mph.<\/p>\n<p>Historically, the difference in penalties between the different bands of speeding has not reflected the increased likelihood of causing death.\u00a0These changes, which come into force on 24 April 2017, are aimed at redressing this imbalance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drivers convicted of speeding or using a mobile phone while driving will face tougher penalties from April 2017, under new sentencing guidelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37],"tags":[2056,2055],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9584"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9589,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9584\/revisions\/9589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}