My day in Court

The long running battle I have with the local police and council concerning their overly aggressive use of speed camera's reached a new level on Friday when I had to appear in court to defend my position not to identify the driver of my car when it was flashed in early January.

The car was travelling at 38 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone, the road was an eight lane carriageway, and traffic was minimal. I was seriously annoyed when I found out I had been 'flashed'.

How did I find out? Not by the usual process of summons, but by a policeman visiting the address in late March or early April. He was there to check I lived at the address in question, but when I informed him this was the first I had heard of the offense, he indicate he would resend the summons.

This arrived towards the end of April and I wrote indicating I could not be sure who was driving so could they give me photographic evidence to help? No, they said, the photo is only for car identification. "Oh" I said, "see you in court then".

I was duly summoned and warned that a guilty verdict would result in a 6 point penalty. My in-house legal team attended court three times on my behalf, arguing , that I had not received any notification until April, that I had co-operated to try to identify the driver and that I should be acquitted. The CPS were having none of it, so I was wheeled out in person to face the bench.

Three magistrates sat in judgement, and after my new solicitor put the case for dismissal, the young CPS lawyer asked a few questions and pushed for a guilty verdict. The magistrates then retired to consider their verdict.

After 15 or 20 minutes they returned to find me not guilty and, on application, awarded me and the team costs. So six points avoided, a lot of tax payers money wasted and a vindication of my bloody minded attitude towards the Liverpool road policing policy.

I got flashed again in May this year while taking my mother to hospital for a check up so I still have 3 points on my license, but what I am now exploring is a bolt-on for my sat nav and to see if there is a governor facility on the cruise control. I really must accelerate way from traffic lights at a much slower speed as that seems to be my undoing.

So I am leading 2-0 on contested cases at the moment, and have also used up my driver awareness option. If they had all gone the other way I would be facing a ban with twelve points totted up in less than a year. Compared to London,  Liverpool is really not a good place to get around by public transport, but with my old gits bus pass I must try.

Time flies when you're having fun

The first few weeks of retirement have been strange. I really have not had any time to do anything as random people make requests on me to do things for them, thinking that I must have time to fill.

How wrong would they be. The first activity was to try to get insurance for the car. This is not as straight forward as I would have expected due to the fact that I had been driving a Company car for over twelve years and the no claims position was, therefore, somewhat vague. Add to that that the policy was third party and I would have expected a full discount. No, its not as easy as that, they considered all the cosmetic repairs I got done before buying as an 'incident' for goodness sake.

Then there is the 'convictions'. For goodness sake,  they are minor traffic offences captured by speed camera's and which make the council a fortune. They don't make somebody a high risk driver just because they have 3 points on their license, and why should insurers count them for five years, when they stay on the license for only three. Somebody is having a giraffe!

I have also read somewhere that they are now going to use the defensive driving course against you in future insurance renewals despite the fact that the police indicate they will not affect your car insurance, when offering them as an option!

Next thing is to sort out new bank accounts and other financial requirements. I did like the look of the Santander 123 account so we have started the ball rolling there. That was complicated by the Council renaming our house from 19 to 21. Proving they are the same property has stretched us too.

Investment rates are also a bit pants, with rates around 3% rapidly being withdrawn. One from Intelligent Finance which is 2.47% came with a note saying it was going down to 1.8% in February. Really not worth the trouble.

I am still working on the Job Seekers allowance  but not holding out too much hope, and may have to wedge up with Zopa to get any sort of investment return In the foreseeable future.

Then there is always the ironing, cooking and cleaning to fill in the spare time!!