Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

Magistrates spend a lot of time dealing with traffic offences. And the gap between offences and court decisions is, on average, over 6 months. As part of the Government’s Criminal Justice Strategy and Action Plan, it has established specialist traffic courts in 9 pathfinder areas of the country. The Government has recently announced that, from April 2014, there will be a specialist traffic court in each police area.
Offences dealt with in the dedicated traffic courts could include:

• Driving licence related offences
• Lighting offences
• Load offences
• Miscellaneous motoring offences (including trailer offences)
• Motorway offences (other than speeding)
• Neglect of pedestrian rights
• Neglect of traffic directions
• Noise offences
• Obstruction, waiting and parking offences
• Offences particular to motorcycles
• Speed limit offences
• Vehicle insurance offences
• Vehicle test offences
• Vehicles or parts in dangerous or defective condition

There are currently around 500,000 traffic cases dealt with in magistrates courts each year. The intention will be that specialist centres will be established to process these cases. IT will be used to create digital files and enable people to participate by live links without the need to attend courts. The current pathfinders are dealing with up to 160 cases a day.

The Press announcement is at

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/traffic-courts-in-every-area