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Boss lady had a garage supplied courtesy car while hers was in for service. During that time we’ve just received a NIP from Essex police for an offence down there. We’re in Derbyshire!, she certainly wasn’t down Essex. I was away working. What do we put on the form? Struggling to think of stuff to absolve her. She went from garage to Derby Hospital, then home overnight. Off to work 8 miles away in the morning then back to garage to collect her car.
Check with garage to see if courtesy car has a tracker. Good chance if it’s a fairly modern car.
I’d phone the fixed penalty unit in Essex police and ask their advice. Some of them are human.
Is there a photo with the nip? I had this years ago my car was a metro and my plate was being used on an escort (I did say it was years ago 😁)
Could be worse, my brother was woken up in a robust fashion by armed police, turned out the xr2 he'd sold had just been used in an armed raid and the little scamps hadn't changed vehicle ownership 😀
Did the garage record the mileage at handover and return?
Screenshot of her google location history?
Anyway. It is the police that need to prove she was driving. If she tells them the circs they either accept them or get involved in time wasting enquiries. At which point presumably someone on her team at work would verify she was there and not in Essex.
Will get onto the garage tomorrow see if they will release any records. The offence was at 01:40 am! So I guess we’re worrying that theoretically she could have gotten there!,
Same thing happened to me. Hit and run on a number of parked vehicles in a residential street in a city we'd never been to 300 miles away in the middle of the night when we were a family with 2 kids under 5 and were in bed by 9 every evening!
To make it worse our car was quite old and covered in little dents and scratches. Insurance company didn't want to hear anything but that it was us. Absolute scumbags, sent out a guy to check the car and stated it was probably us.
I wrote a long email to the police force involved, got called by a cop who was fantastic - made the whole thing go away. Still got chased by the insurance company and told them to do one. Got rude letters telling me I was in all sorts of trouble but just ignored and off they trotted.
totally stressed me out for about 3 months - don't recommend it
I had one of these, I just sent back pretty simply "wasn't me, I wasn't there", I figured there was no real benefit to adding any more since there'd be a process to work through. They followed up with photos, which showed it wasn't my car, was dead simple in the end
It's up to the owner to supply driver details or they commit an offence https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/172
They're complying and so should you, but it makes sense that you both contact the road safety unit to explain the situation and let the police investigate. Document everything and get names, etc
We too had notice of accident and driving off, 350 miles from where we lived.
Filled in the police and insurance letter with 'wasnt there, we've witnesses to say we were both at work either side. Please can you send photo of the car or confirm what vehicle beyond a reg plate'.
Turned out the car was totally different from ours - they think the witness got reg plate wrong... Both police and insurance wrote back within a month to confirm no action needed it was a mistake.
This sort of happened to me once. Except it was me in the end. I got a speeding ticket on the m4 and sent a nip. I sent it back saying it couldn’t be me as I lived in Oxford, wasn’t there etc. I’d sort of forgotten that I did go to the Gower that week which was unusual. The police handily sent me a picture of my car with me in the front seat driving looking straight at the camera! That was 20 yrs ago. I bet the camera tech is even better now. Send the letter, say it wasn’t you, ask for the picture etc.
I got a series of speeding tickets in Manchester even though I live in Southampton. The twist was that I had been working on Manchester on the odds days during this period. Police agreed it probably wasn't me but it took them to find a photo of the car and see it was the wrong colour, make and model to give me the all clear.
The accusation/tickets seem to be issues automatically and they rely on the public to appeal them to spot the errors.
Of course, OPs wife could be having a secret affair in Essex whilst he's away and cops have now blown the story...😄
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news
Nice one Vlad ! 😂😂
Is the NIP for the Mrs car, or the hire car...?
while hers was in for service
So if she handed over the car to a dealer and the offence was committed whilst the dealer had posession of her car, thats her get out of jail card as long as the dealer can authenticate this fact. Unless one of their staff was on an unauthorised joyride/mission.
As northwind, we just said it wasn't us. That triggered them to look at it more closely where they spotted an error. No need to go into much detail or gathering evidence at this stage.
Unless one of their staff was on an unauthorised joyride/mission.
my mate turned up one day in a Lotus Carlton , it was in at his place ( he was a mechanic) for new brakes. 250 mile test drive later ……..😎
Update. Boss called the garage who have looked at the tracker on the hire car and have confirmed it to be at our house during the time of the offence. 👍👍. So she’s going to put on the form to contact the garage for confirmation. I guess the garage have a cloned car to sort out too?
Possibly just another car with a similar number plate. My OH got a NOP for driving in a bus lane in London which she hadn't. When they sent the photo it was quite hard to read the numberplate, but also clear it wasn't our numberplate, they had just got it wrong? Can't remember now if it was even the same model of car.