| Hi guys,
you can imagine this has caused a fair bit of unrest in the various IAM and Rospa groups (I'm the chairman of an IAM group).
The IAM legal bods have put their heads together, and the upshot is if you are leading a group of riders and you yourself are breaking the law your penalty may be slightly more severe.
If however you as the run leader are not breaking the law you cannot be prosecuted for thier actions.
Dementor, the only real way to deal with this is to not only give that statement, but to give a pre-ride briefing to ensure everyone on the ride understands and accepts the terms of you leading the ride, or better still you as leader not breaking the law. The IAM suggest a pre-ride brief, and we use a checklist too, just to ensure all points are covered.
Sadly this ruling does mean that there is a chance people may now be prosecuted to a greater extent, regardless of a disclaimer.
The worrying thing is the way the guy in this case describes the circumstances, as they just don't seem to add up. Consequently a good number of people have picked the bones out of his 'story', and essentially undermined his case.
Its worth noting too that he hasn't appealed against the fact that he was speeding, just the extent of the penalty given. Had he taken the £60 and 3 points in the first place he'd have saved himself a great deal of time and money.  |