Paging the hardened Euro travellers.

In this country they can.

 

Really? I know they can do the leader of a group for speeding if anyone
else in the group is (assuming that law came in), but apart from that
specific case, can they really do you for something with absolutely no
evidence?

 

Burnt was (re)relating the details to me a couple of days ago, and I
concluded that most probably they could, and would, prosecute all of
you. I'm not an expert in Swiss law, but it seems in general to be
geared towards excluding technical defences like that - two of you
were _definitely_ breaking the law, after all. They don't like that.

But in any case, can't UK law also work like that? ISTR that there
have been some murder cases where a group have all been prosecuted
even though only one of them probably committed the actual killing.

 

Apples and oranges in my book. In your example, you're referring to a
physical attribute of the vehicle. In the case of a jacket, it's about a
person stood by the side of a road.

I guess it comes down to whether it's a traffic regulation, and therefore
applies to all, or a vehicle regulation and applies to French registered
vehicles (except bikes).

 

This is true, & had they seen us on numerous other occasions, they
could probably have done far worse. It still worked out at pretty good
value for an open-pitlane trackday.

They may well have prosecuted a group for accessory to murder if there
was evidence they knew about it. I don't think 'accessory to overtaking
in a no overtaking zone' is a recognised crime though. Yet.

 

Indeed, I don't remember ever seeing a continental vehicle in UK with
taped/masked headlights other than a Merc I brought back from Germany
in 87. I put it in the local garage for its first MOT, went back later
to collect what I thought would be a fail cert, there it were with tape
applied to the headlights and a nice pass cert, chuffed I was.

Like you, when furrin I just wind the headlight down max on the R or
used the bottom set position on the K's.

 

ISTR that the group were all prosecuted for murder, not as
accessories.

 

IANAL of course. But this seemed quite clear to me:

http://www.bgtbikersolicitors.co.uk/case_law.html

"Although it is not what happened in this case, it is possible for a
rider to be prosecuted for aiding and abetting an offence committed by
someone else. This can occur where there is evidence of vehicles racing
(even without any actual agreement to do so). If one rider commits an
offence, e.g. dangerous driving, another rider can be convicted of that
offence if there is evidence that his actions encouraged the first rider
or in some way contributed to the dangerous driving"

 

The 'Joint Enterprise' section of
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/homicide_murder_and_manslaughter/#MUR
DER_1 implies there would have to be evidence that they were 'acting in
concert' for that to happen. Bugger knows what the legal definition of
'acting in concert' is though.

 

Ho yuss. Plod and judges have in the past smiled at murder cases where
you have a pair of suspects and each blames the other, because they
both go dahn.

 

..

Just as well, because we'd all be in court....

 

"For you, the speeding is over."

 

Its a while since I was involved in commercial transport, but
technically, the EU rules were (1) you must be legal in: your country of
origin, transit and destination *at all times* (something must have
changed to allow for cabotage, now legal), thus any truck coming to UK
had to be loaded to UK weight limits. Many was the truck nicked coming
off the ferry as overweight, but on a few occasions, the French got leery
at the FR/ES border and nicked trucks destined for the UK for being over
UK weight limits.

1: This was back in the day when the UK was 32tonnes, so a long long time
ago

 

Veggie Dave escribió:

Here in Spain, a lot of transport firms register their lorries in Portugal,
because how far you can go within Spain, depends on how much road tax you
pay. Foreign trucks can go where they like. Weird.

 

But that & the other cases on that page all rely on there being
evidence that both riders did something wrong. If you & I are riding in
convoy, not racing & within the speed limit, & you cross a solid white
line to overtake & I don't, I'm sure there's no way I could be done for
crossing a solid white line. You won't convince me otherwise without
referring to a specific case.

Note also from your link "It would be very hard for the prosecution to
prove that the lead rider had aided and abetted anyone else to commit a
speeding offence where the lead rider himself was not speeding. It is
difficult to imagine a scenario where he would be prosecuted."

 

I'd have thought that "a group of hooligans on powerful sports bikes
hooning around the Swiss road network" might be viewed as counting on
that score.

 

Thought so.

 

*ding*

 

Technology has caught up;

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v290/familyalbum1/UKRM/THEbike.jpg

 

How do you manage that? In fifteen years of driving in FR and CH almost
daily, I've been stopped by the police just once, and that was because the
cop wanted to know whether I liked my bike. You must look like a crim.