The Question on the Back of a Speeding Ticket That Costs Double if You Ignore It

• Every NIP comes with a legal demand attached: name the Driver within 28 days, under Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act.
• Ignore it and the penalty is six points and a fine of up to £1,000 — frequently worse than the speeding offence itself.
• And most Drivers have no idea the punishment for silence was deliberately doubled to make sure of that.

Here’s a trap that catches thousands of otherwise sensible Motorists: the belief that if you simply don’t answer a speeding ticket, it might quietly go away.

It doesn’t go away. It gets worse.

When an NIP lands on the doormat, it arrives with a demand under Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988: tell us who was driving the vehicle, within 28 days.

That demand is not a polite request. Failing to answer it is a criminal offence in its own right — one that carries six penalty points and a fine of up to £1,000, plus a discretionary ban if the Court is feeling unkind.

Compare that with the offence the ticket was actually about. A run-of-the-mill speeding matter typically means three points. Staying silent about who was driving means six.

The punishment for not answering the question is double the punishment for the thing you were accused of.

Doubled on Purpose

That’s no accident of drafting.

Until 2007, failing to identify the driver carried three points — the same as the speeding offence it usually related to. Which created an obvious temptation: some Drivers already carrying points, or facing a camera case they couldn’t otherwise dodge, worked out that saying nothing cost no more than owning up.

So Parliament changed the sums. On 24 September 2007, the Road Safety Act 2006 doubled the penalty from three points to six, and the arithmetic of silence collapsed overnight.

Since that date, stonewalling the form has been one of the most expensive moves in motoring law — and it has a nasty habit of landing on people who never intended to stonewall anyone: the form lost behind the bread bin, the family car nobody can quite account for, the Driver away for a month while the 28 days tick down.

Why Playing Dead Backfires Even When It “Works”

There’s a second cost to silence, and our own Speeding Solicitors drum it into us constantly: a Driver who blankly refuses to engage looks deliberately obstructive.

That impression follows the case. A Motorist who responded promptly and co-operated — while admitting nothing they didn’t have to — walks into any later hearing in a far stronger position than one who ignored two notices and hoped.

Responding, remember, is not confessing. The form asks who was driving; whether any offence can actually be proved against that person is a separate battle, and answering the first question surrenders none of your ammunition for the second.

What silence surrenders is the high ground — and it hands the prosecution an easier charge than the one they started with.

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When You Genuinely Can’t Answer

None of this means the six points are automatic. The law recognises honest predicaments, and there are real defences.

If you took all reasonable steps to work out who was driving and genuinely couldn’t — the shared family car, the pool vehicle, the borrowed van — that “reasonable diligence” can be a complete defence. If it wasn’t reasonably practicable to reply inside 28 days, or the notice never actually reached you, those can be defences too.

But every one of them turns on detail: what you did, when you did it, and what you can show. These are exactly the cases where a specialist eye at the start is worth more than a brilliant argument at the end.

So if an NIP and its Section 172 demand are sitting on your kitchen table right now, deal with them — and deal with them advised. DriveProtect™ Members get direct access to a specialist Speeding Solicitor the moment the envelope arrives, 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.