The Three Points That Never Happened — What Really Sways a Police Officer at the Roadside

• Stopping on the white zigzags by a pedestrian crossing is an endorsable offence — today it means a £100 fixed penalty and three points on your licence.
• Yet the officer standing at your window holds genuine legal discretion: a quiet word, a warning, a course, or the full ticket.
• And which one you get often has surprisingly little to do with the offence itself.

Years ago, our founder pulled up outside a bakery on the south coast to grab a sandwich — two minutes, engine barely cold.

Walking back out, he saw a police officer crossing the road towards his car, camera in hand. And then he saw why: his car was overlapping the white zigzag lines before a crossing.

An endorsable offence. In those days, a £60 fine and three points — the same three points a speed camera hands out. Today the fixed penalty is £100, and taken to Court the fine can reach £1,000.

The opening line from the officer was straight from the training manual: “Is this your car?”

Two minutes later he drove away with no fine and no points. What happened in between is a lesson every Driver should know.

One Offence, Four Possible Outcomes

Here’s what most Motorists never realise: for a huge range of everyday offences, the officer in front of you is not a vending machine that dispenses tickets.

Policing guidance openly recognises roadside discretion. The same offence can lawfully end in words of advice, a formal warning, an offer of a course, a fixed penalty — or a summons. Nine Drivers can commit the same misjudgement and walk away with five different outcomes.

The offence sets the menu. The officer chooses from it.

Which raises the only question that matters: what influences the choice?

What Was Really Being Decided Outside That Bakery

Back to the zigzags. Our founder did three things in the space of ten seconds, none of them clever and all of them decisive.

He didn’t argue the markings, didn’t claim he’d “only been a minute”, and didn’t demand to know why the officer wasn’t out catching real criminals. He held his hands up, owned the mistake with a bit of self-deprecating humour, and moved immediately to put it right by getting the car off the lines.

The officer’s reply: “OK, you’d better get away, quick.”

No fine. No points. Not because the offence hadn’t happened — it plainly had — but because everything about the encounter told the officer that advice had already done its job.

What Genuinely Tips Discretion Your Way

Strip away the folklore and roadside discretion runs on a few very human signals.

Immediate honesty is the big one. An officer who hears “you’re right, that’s my fault” has just had the hardest part of the job done for them — and a warning suddenly achieves everything a ticket would.

Respect and calm matter almost as much. Officers deal with hostility all day; simple courtesy stands out more than most Drivers imagine.

And visible correction seals it: the belt clicked on, the phone put away, the car moved. Discretion exists to change behaviour, and nothing proves changed behaviour like changing it on the spot.

The reverse list is just as reliable. Arguing the law at the kerb, inventing excuses the officer has heard a thousand times, or getting personal will convert a possible warning into a certain ticket faster than the offence ever could.

None of this is a trick. It’s simply giving a person with a choice every reason to make the smaller one.

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When There’s No Human at the Roadside

Here’s the sting in the tail: discretion needs a person, and modern enforcement increasingly doesn’t have one.

A camera cannot be charmed, cannot hear your honesty, and cannot watch you put things right. When the offence is captured by a lens, the NIP is generated and posted, and the first human judgement in the whole process may be yours — deciding how to respond to it.

That response is where cases are won and lost, and it’s exactly where most Drivers have no one in their corner.

DriveProtect™ Members do. The moment a NIP or Court paperwork arrives, Members get direct access to a specialist Speeding Solicitor who reviews the case and advises them exactly what to respond, for a fraction of the normal cost of legal help.

Got a NIP or points on your licence right now? See how DriveProtect Membership works — a specialist Speeding Solicitor in your corner from £25/month.