Five simple ways to avoid a ticket!
Some offences are obvious but here's five you may have not know about.
We all know the main the offences that could land you with driving penalties. But, there are some lesser-known things that you could be doing right now; that could get you points on your license and even a hefty fine.
Driving close to a cyclist
This one seems obvious but many drivers may not know that the recommended overtaking distance around a cyclist is 1.5 meters.
If seen passing any closer, you could pick up a £100 fine and three points on your license.
Parking on a pedestrian crossing
Unless you're in an emergency situation, drivers are not allowed to park on any kind of pedestrian crossing. Doing so could land you with a £100 fine and points on your license., even if you were only there for 5 minutes!
Attaching illegal number plates
According to the DVLA, number plates displayed at the front of a car must be black text on a white background and then black text on a yellow background at the back of the car. Regulations are also very tight on fonts and letter sizes used also.
Drivers caught with illegal number plates could find themselves with a hefty £100 fine!
Driving with defective tyres
Technically this one is an obvious one. All drivers are told during their learning period that they must make regular tyre tread depth and pressure checks, but let's be honest; not many of us actually do.
The legal tread depth requirement is 1.6mm, any lower than that on one tyre and you could land yourself with a £100 fine and three points on your license.
But here's the kicker, if you are caught with more than one tyre under the legal tread depth limit you will be subject to a £2,500 fine, a court hearing and then three points on your license per defective tyre! So if all four tyres are worn, no more driving for you.
Items attached to the windscreen that could obstruct a drivers view
A drivers windscreen is split into two zones.
Zone A is the area directly in front of you while you're driving and this area must not have anything obstructions over the size of 10mm in diameter. Zone B refers to the rest of the windscreen and this area can't have anything larger that 40mm in diameter.
This seems petty from a drivers point of view, but perhaps to be safe it's better to buy a phone cradle or sat nav that can be mounted onto the air conditioning vents.
Drivers pulled over with an obstructed view could be landed with a £200 fine and six points on your license.
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Comments (8)
Wait what? You need to be more that 15 feet away from a cyclist while over taken, to avoid prosecution?
That's absurd, over here drivers, usually overtake cyclists about a couple inches away from them, and to be prosecuted well, you need to kill, or at least seriously injure a cyclist... Much more sensible, y'know...
1.5 metres is about 5ft.
Oh, sorry botched up my conversion shit, still that's still a humongous distance compared to what we do over here...
Read the highway code
The Highway Code isn't all law, much of it is just advice.