Devon & Cornwall Police working together with our partners Police

If a camera has detected an alleged speeding offence, a Notice of Intended Prosecution will be sent to the registered keeper together with a request for driver information, within 14 days. Please note it is an offence under S172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to fail to provide information that is in your power to give, which may lead to the identification of the driver at the time of an alleged offence.

If you were the driver then please complete Section A of the Notice and return to us.  Remember to sign the notice as unsigned forms cannot be accepted.

If you were not the driver then please complete Section B of the Notice and return to us. DO NOT pass the form to the driver as we can only accept the Notice completed by the person it is addressed to. Please ensure you date and sign the form before you return to us.

As above you cannot complete Section A as the form is addressed to your company not you as an individual, please nominate the driver at Section B. In the case of sole traders this will be same as the company owner however as the notice is addressed to the company the driver needs to be nominated.  On receipt of the nomination at Section B we will send a notice in the driver’s name, not the companies.  Section A can then be completed as the driver.

Either the DVLA database has you recorded as the vehicle's registered keeper or last known keeper or you were nominated as being the vehicle's keeper during the alleged offence by the recipient of a previous Notice.  Even if you have sold or scrapped the vehicle your contact details will remain on the DVLA’s database until they receive the V5C vehicle registration document from the new owner and update their records. This can be the case even if you have received a letter from the DVLA saying you are no longer the "registered keeper".

In respect of requesting details of the driver of a vehicle who has committed an alleged offence of excess speed or a red-light offence Section 172 of The Road Traffic Act 1988 gives the Road Safety Team the right to require any person, not just the current owner, who may know who was driving during the alleged offence to provide that information. You must therefore reply to the Notice either admitting you were driving or nominating the person or company you sold, hired or loaned the vehicle to.

If you are the driver and have responded to the notice within the required timeframe, you could be sent:

• An option to attend a driver awareness course under the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme
• A fixed penalty notice
• A letter informing you go to court

The above are dependent on the speed you were travelling at and in the case of courses if you have previously completed one in the last 3 years.  It should be noted there is no legal entitlement to a course, these are offered at the sole discretion of police, and the courts have no powers over courses.  Also if an offer for a course is made to you, the police can withdraw the offer at any time before the course has been successfully completed.

You still are required to complete and sign section A of the notice and return it to the address shown on the form within 28 days.  You may eligible for a Speed Awareness Course (see above) but if you aren’t then the matter will be referred to court.

If you have been recorded at what's considered a high speed then it will be referred to court in the first instance. You'll still need to return the completed form and once it's processed you will receive a court summons.

A Notice of Intended Prosecution must be served on the vehicle's DVLA registered keeper within 14 days after the date of the alleged offence. However there is an exemption if the Police cannot reasonably obtain the keeper's details within that time, for example if the DVLA has no keeper details or they are incomplete.

There is no deadline for the issuing of any subsequent Notices or S172 RTA 1988 requests to identify who was driving. The Road Safety Team sends all Notices by first class Royal Mail.

Sending these notices to the last known address by law these Notices are considered served on the addressee. There is no requirement in law to use recorded delivery and it would be impractical for us to do so due to the large number of Notices they issue.

If you have purchased this vehicle recently it could be that the new keeper details have not been processed by the DVLA to update their database. It should be noted that we are required to send a NIP to the Registered Keeper as far as our records show within 14 days. The delay of a system update resulting in the previous owner being contacted first does not mean that the 14 days for service has not been complied with. Similarly for Hire/PCP/Lease/Loan and similar vehicles, or where the keeper has nominated a driver eg. Partners, then they will have NIPs sent to the keeper in the first instance.

It is the legal duty of a person who keeps a vehicle to know who is driving it at all times, NOT the Police. Correspondence received by the Road Safety Team stating you are not aware of who was driving could result in a prosecution to the person sent the notice. Please be aware, explanations such as “My partner and I both drove the car that day and cannot recall who was driving the car at the time” or “It was a long journey and we shared the driving”, are not acceptable explanations as to why the driver cannot be established. If you claim to be unable to identify the driver and/or the information you do have does not fit the boxes on the notice please use a separate piece of paper to explain and ensure that this is returned along with the notice. We will then consider your response fully, in line with Lord Howard of Lympne V Direction of Public Prosecutions 2008.

Devon & Cornwall Police will not discuss this matter as it forms part of an active investigation and it is inappropriate to comment on something which ultimately may be for a court to decide upon. Where a message or correspondence is received by the Road Safety Team you will only receive a response where it is a matter not already covered within the contents of the notice.

Any Error in the date, time, vehicle make, model or registration number, speed or time into red light and the spelling of names and addresses which are the result of administrative mistakes will not necessarily invalidate the Notice.  Any errors should be brought to the attention of the Road Safety Team immediately.

The Camera Ticket Office will not cancel a Notice for any of the following reasons, this list is not exhaustive:

• I did not know the road
• I was distracted
• There were road works but I didn't see any workers
• I did not see the signs
• I was late
• It was late at night / early in the morning
• The road was quiet
• This is my first offence
• The road was clear
• The speed limit has recently changed
• I did not see the camera
• Other drivers were also speeding
• The car behind me forced me to speed
• I don't think the speed limit is suitable for that road
• I was just following the flow of traffic
• My SatNav told me the speed limit was different
• My SatNav didn't warn me that the camera was there

No, our Speed Detection Officers are authorised by the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police to carry out such enforcement activity by Section 20 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 and Section 38 of the Police Reform Act 2002 and as such are designated persons. They have been fully trained in the use of all aspects of the Home Office Type Approved device they are using and are authorised to drive a Police liveried enforcement vehicle.

It should be noted, as Mobile and safety camera operators are designated by the Chief Constable to carry out enforcement activity as policing support officers under Section 38 of the Police Reform Act 2002 as amended in 2017.  As such any deliberate obstruction of their lawful enforcement, such as parking your car so as to prevent enforcement is an offence under section 46(2)(B) Police Reform Act 2002 and will be investigated.

There is no legal requirement for the police to display camera signs on or near the road or on the enforcement vehicle. Motorists should be aware that if they exceed the legal speed limit anywhere at any time, they risk being detected and fined.

All detection devices are Home Office Type Approved for use. The equipment has internal automatic self-diagnostic checks and are regularly tested by the operator during use against known targets. The equipment is also independently checked and calibrated on an annual basis in accordance with the manufacturer’s guidance and issued with a calibration certificate which forms part of police evidence and can be produced in court if required.

The purpose of the safety vehicles is to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured in collisions on our roads, by encouraging people to obey speed limits and drive in a safe and considerate manner. The camera operators can detect drivers or passengers who fail to wear a seat belt, drivers who use a mobile phone or handheld device whilst driving or who fail to be in proper control of their vehicle; they are also able to enforce vehicles travelling in both directions, which means that they are able to measure and photograph vehicles either approaching or receding from the enforcement vehicle. 

The mobile cameras employ laser technology to detect the speed of vehicles. The laser has a theoretical range of many miles but for enforcement purposes where the operator needs to see the vehicle, the equipment is calibrated up to 1000 metres.

The CCTV is in operation to prevent and detect crime and to increase staff safety in the event of a verbal or physical attack on the Speed Detection Officers operating the enforcement equipment

We do not tolerate abusive, threatening or insulting behaviour towards our staff and all incidents reported as such will be investigated.

If you have any comments or complaints, please do not raise these with the Speed Detection Officer, they are simply trying to make the roads a safer place for all road users.  If you have any comments or complaints about enforcement please use the general enquires from and mark for the attention of the Speed Detection Road Safety Team Leader.

For speeding concerns please use the contact form on the front of this webpage entitled Speed Concerns.

The ‘MANUAL : REAR PLATE’ wording on the offence image indicates the speedmeter has been set by the operator to the mode most suitable to capture motorcycles and other vehicles.  It is the preferred operating mode for the LaserTech Trucam2 operators as when operating in this mode it allows the device to continue recording after the speed has been measured for as long as the trigger remains depressed.  In this way if a motorcycle is detected approaching the operator, they can follow the motorcycle as it passes them and capture the number plate at the rear, as motorcycles have no front number plate.  If the device is set to ‘Front Plate’ mode it will capture the offence image but only carries on recording for a pre-set period of time to capture a front facing image as the vehicle approaches.  It then stops recording even if the trigger remains depressed.  Our operators generally do not use this mode, but it could be used for example on overbridges where there would be no opportunity to continually record the motorcycle as it passes underneath the operator.  If your offence image states ‘MANUAL : REAR PLATE’ then it has been set to the mode described above and will still capture front number plates and speed correctly