The 2 most common driving offences that learner drivers commit are breaking the speed limit (speeding) and failing to stop or obey a traffic signal (running a red light). All offences committed in a car are covered by the road traffic act 1988.
Provisional Licence holders and Speeding Fines
If you are caught by either a camera or police officer commiting a speeding offence, then you will usually be fined £60 and given 3-6 penalty points on your licence indicated by a code SP30 on the counterpart, but if the speed you were travelling at was far in excess of the statutory limit, you might have to go to court where you would be prosecuted in front of a magistrate. Other codes that might be put on your licence are SP50. Remember it is your responsibility as a driver to obey the highway code and road traffic act.
Failing to comply with traffic light signals
Running a red light is a simple driving offence which is usually dealt with by issuing a fixed penalty fine of £60 and 3 points on your licence (TS10), unless if there was a resultant accident with serious injuries or fatalities in which case you would probably be needing a solicitor or barister to defend you in a court of law. You as a provisional licence holder need to also know that it is a driving offence to fail to comply with a school crossing patrol direction (lollipop man or lady), you are playing with another £60 fine and 3 penalty points.
Driving Licence bans and disqualification
The maximum number of penalty points that you can have on a provisional driving licence under the totting up system is 11 in any 3 year period (even though the minimum period they actually stay on is 4), if you get 12 points or more, you will get a driving ban, and the TT99 code will be added to your licence counterpart. If you are facing a ban due to driving offences, then you might want to contact a solicitor to see if they can prevent this from happening, but it doesn't give a good impression of your responsibility as a potential driver if you build up so many penalty points on a provisional licence.
Driving without Insurance
The first two provisional licence driving offences that I mentioned above are mistakes which can be easily be made while legally trying to learn to drive car with supervision, but driving without car insurance is a delibrate flout of the road traffic act law, and while as a driver you might get away initially, you will one be caught and will have to pay for this driving offence.
There is a valid reason for the law requiring you to have a minimum of 3rd party vehicle insurance cover before you drive a car as others are protected in the event of a road traffic accident. I know there are many reasons why a lot of provisional licence holders break this law, but at the end of the day you are delibrately commiting a criminal offence which you will have to pay for when caught by a police officer using their ANPR cameras and database.
The Penalty code associated with insurance driving offences is IN10 and you will get a minimum of 6 points entered on your driving licence counterpart. The irony being that you will now have to pay even higher insurance premiums to get your car covered!
Drunk Driving
Drunk driving on a provisional licence is another offence which you the driver can make a conscious decision on whether you are going to do or not. If you've committed this driving offence before and got away with it, now is the time to stop! Not only are you endangering your life, but that of other road users including pedestrians. Drink and driving do not go together, and those who have lost loved ones to this very common driving offence are living for the rest of their lives with the consequences.
In Conclusion
If you've been involved in one of the above mentioned driving offences, then now is the time to have a change of heart, mistakes can happen, but consistently braking the speed limit, running red lights, driving without insurance, being drunk incharge of a car has no excuse!
