S172 Road Traffic Act

Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act is aimed at forcing someone to provide the identity of the driver at the time of an alleged road traffic offence.

Most road traffic offences are detected by un-manned devices and as such the authorities require a way of finding out the identity of a driver at the time of an offence. They do this by sending a notice to the driver requiring them to identify the driver of the vehicle at a said time and place.

This is not the same as admitting an offence, however there will usually be a reason the police require this information, such as they have evidenced an offence was committed, or they suspect an offence has been committed and would like to identify the driver to speak with them. Should you find yourself charged with a S172 offence this means you usually will have been sent a notice and have either not replied to this noticeor have not identified the driver of the vehicle in your response. It is important to know there are defences to a S172 offence should you be charged.

Reasonable Diligence – This is where you have done your absolute utmost to identify the driver. This may include checking bank statements to see who paid for fuel on a particular dayor asking friends and relatives. To use this defence you have to show you have done everything in your power to identify the driver, and have been unable to do so.

Not Reasonably Practicable to Identify the Driver – the legislation states that; You shall not be convicted of failure to provide driver information if you can Show that it was not ‘reasonably practicable’ to supply the information within the 28 days allowed. The legislation goes further than this and goes on to state that outside of the 28 days; You will still have a defence if you can show that you provided the information ‘as soon as reasonably practicable thereafter’. – This is useful for example for drivers who did not receive the request for driver information and therefore could not respond.