Defective Brake Light Bulb

[Bradley1500]

Appealing for some help here.

My friend Saturday evening (26/07/14) was given a written ticket for a defective brake light bulb, it was a £100 on the spot fine.

My immediate thought was that normally you would receive a seven or fourteen day producer to get your car tested at a MOT station to give you time to get the issue rectified?

My arguement is that you could check your car for defects before your journey but something like a bulb could blow at anytime so could have blown on his journey?

Is this a legitimate arguement?

Furthermore on his written ticket the Police officer has written down the colour of the car wrongly. He's stated it is grey whereas it's actually green. Will this affect any penalty at all?

To give some background information the ticket was issued at an organised legal car meet with circa 1500 cars attending. The road leaving the meeting was made into a stop check point where each and every car was given a road-side MOT with a lot of cars receiving fines for very trivial issues.

Here's an example which has been posted on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1015437627060...

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1015437755168...

This shows an officer issuing a ticket to a 'defective car' while driving an obviously defective car himself, sidelight bulb blown. This is an issue a lot of cars on the night received £100 fines for.

Any information on this would be greatly received even if it is suck it up and pay the fine.

[Bradley1500]

Snowboy said:

It does seem a little harsh, but perfectly legal.

Would I be right in saying that the event was a 'carpark cruise' style of thing rather than a carfest festival thing?
If so I'd guess the test were being used as a deterrent to try and stop people doing it again.

Could you link to the events website, it'll help us to understand the situation.

You're quite right, it is a 'car park cruise' style event but was arranged before hand with all local businesses agreeing to hold the event and local authorities (i.e Police) being notified for the increase in traffic for the night.

I've since spoken to a local Police officer to try and get some more information on the fines and their reasoning behind it. He basically said despite the event being perfectly legal some local residents are still getting annoyed with certain members of the event getting a little too excited to and from the main event with dangerous driving and excessive noise (loud exhausts, music etc.)

This was an exercise to deter these type of people from these events. I completely agree with this but as usual the minority are spoiling it for the majority with people like my friend getting fines for very trivial defects.

As far as I am aware the event organisers don't have a website per se but here is their Facebook page where a lot of the events are arranged: https://www.facebook.com/lowdown2013?ref=ts&fr...

[Bradley1500]

Not the news I was wanting to hear as I was hoping there would be some way he could fight against the fine.

I completely agree that a lot of local residents will group all together as being the boy racer type and you've got to be whiter than white if you want to attend these gathering. It is just annoying that he's become subject to this punishment as he isn't one to dick about on the roads, especially at events like these due to the amount of traffic and pedestrians about.

Thanks for the replies so far.

[Bradley1500]

Snowboy said:

I think your mate need to realise that joining these events IS dicking about in the roads.
These 'events' are disruptive, annoying and inconvenient to locals and other traffic.

Merely by attending your mate is causing problems for other people; and that's dickish behaviour.

Next time perhaps he'll spend the £100 on a proper ticket for an event that won't ps off a few hundred residents and other road users.

Personally I fail to see how driving to an event in a normal manner, spending a couple of hours looking at the cars on show then driving home again in a normal fashion is dickish behavior.

If on the other hand he was racing to and from the event, doing stunts on the road (burnouts, drifting or whatever) then I'd completely agree.

Its not as if this happens every weekend, if so then I could understand local residents getting pissed off.

Dwight VanDriver said:

Is there not a defence under Reg 23 ((3) (c) RV Lighting Regs 1969:

(c)a defective lamp, reflector, dim-dip device or headlamp levelling device on a vehicle in use on a road between sunrise and sunset, if any such lamp, reflector or device became defective during the journey which is in progress or if arrangements have been made to remedy the defect with all reasonable expedition

?

dvd

I'll look into this regulation and see if this could be used as a legitimate defence, thank you!

[Bradley1500]

BonzoG said:

Bradley1500 said:

Dwight VanDriver said:

Is there not a defence under Reg 23 ((3) (c) RV Lighting Regs 1969:

(c)a defective lamp, reflector, dim-dip device or headlamp levelling device on a vehicle in use on a road between sunrise and sunset, if any such lamp, reflector or device became defective during the journey which is in progress or if arrangements have been made to remedy the defect with all reasonable expedition

?
dvd

I'll look into this regulation and see if this could be used as a legitimate defence, thank you!

Are those videos from the same time? Looks pretty dark. (See bold)

I don't know the exact time the ticket was issued. I'll have to check with him to see.

Snowboy said:

The cops sidelight being out is mildly amusing.
But, from a legal perspective it's about as relevant as whether he's wearing his hat or not.

Is it really just mildly amusing though?

The officers sidelight out is the exact offence many people on the night received a £100 FPN for.

Is it possible to argue that as my friend had two stop lights working, one on his nearside and his high-level stop light that the offside stop light not working wasn't an offence?

I've been trying to find the regs on this but struggling. From what I've read so far it seems you can have a non-functioning high-level stop light but both stop lights on the longitudinal axis of the vehicle have to be working?

Can someone confirm?

[Bradley1500]

The brake light was fixed at the time the FPN was issued.

He had a spare bulb in the car which worked, just didn't know he had a bulb blown at the time.

[Bradley1500]

I'll let everyone know the outcome if he decides to fight the FPN or simply pays up for an easy life.

Thanks for all the replies.