Does a fixed penalty notice count as a conviction?

The truth about fixed penalty notices, insurance companies, drink driving and getting back on the road.  

No.  

Convictions only happen in court. In other words, you can only be convicted by a judge.

If you get penalty points for speeding or mobile phone offences, while you will get points and a fine, you don’t get a conviction.

That’s because points are an “administrative function” not a “judicial function” i.e. the points are applied automatically by a Department of Transport computer, not a judge.

So they’re not a conviction.

And that’s important for people’s insurance premiums, because when you take out a policy of insurance you must reveal any convictions that you have, no matter how minor.

Because if you don’t, and you have a crash, your insurance company will try their best to worm their way out of any claim you may have because you didn’t tell them about a minor road traffic conviction from years earlier.

I have seen them do this.

They are completely untrustworthy.

Remember, insurance companies are answerable to their shareholders, not you, and the only thing shareholders want is a return on their investment.

So, every CEO of an insurance company has that one goal in mind: not looking after you when you need it most but trying to figure out how to save the company money and add value to the shareholders who put them in that role and authorised their enormous salary.

"As humans, we love certainty.

We crave it actually.

Uncertainty breeds doubt and anxiety.

We like to be able to plan out lives.

You cannot plan your life if you don’t pay the fixed penalty notice

because now, you’re in the court system"

Back to penalty points.

These are not convictions, but you would have to disclose them in many insurance policies.

Again, the same principles apply: if you don’t tell them about penalty points you have, they’ll try to dump you if you have an accident.

Remember: they only care about saving money, not you.

The penalty points system also applies to drink driving.

To be precise, some drink driving cases.

In some cases, if your alcohol level is within certain low levels, you might be entitled to receive a fixed penalty notice.

In these cases, you to pay a fine (between €200 and €400) and you agree to be disqualified from driving for between 3 and 6 months.

Now before you start screaming about “needing my car for work” or “dropping the kids to school” etc, think logically.

Firstly, nobody wants to go off the road, not even for a day, never mind 6 months. I understand that.

But again, follow me back to the land of logic and reason.

If you pay the fixed penalty notice, you have certainty.

You have the certainty of knowing that you only pay a small fine and that you’ll be disqualified from driving for 3 or 6 months, depending on your limit. Once that period is over, you’re back on the road.

"Women especially suffer very badly

from remorseless self-criticism"

As humans, we love certainty. We crave it actually.

Uncertainty breeds doubt and anxiety. We like to be able to plan out lives. You cannot plan your life if you don’t pay the fixed penalty notice because now, you’re in the court system.

Now you’re in a world of uncertainty, and most people hate that.  

If you don’t pay the fixed penalty notice, you’ll definitely get a summons for court.

That’ll take about 6 months or more to arrive and then the court process starts. You’ll usually have three appearances in court (sometimes more, depending on court lists) and you’re hoping that you win your trial.

If you do, hurray, its over! If you lose, you end up being disqualified for twice as long as the fixed notice would have been, and you get a conviction.

This process could take well over 12 months to complete. It’ll take longer if unexpected delays happen e.g. if the Garda is sick on the day of the trial, or court is cancelled for some reason. These things happen.

You now have a criminal record.

And this is usually the one thing that convinces most people to pay the fixed penalty notice: if you pay it (despite the short-term pain of being disqualified for 6 months), you come out the other end with no conviction.

A clean record.

Everybody wants that.

If you don’t pay it and you end up in the lengthy court system, you’ll have this thing hanging over you for at least a year.

That’s a year of sleepless nights and worries about what lies ahead.

And legal costs to defend the case are not cheap.

And here’s another massive worry: many insurance companies refuse to insure anyone with a drink driving conviction.

They won’t do it.

So having decided to fight the case, having had those sleepless nights, stress and significant costs and come out the other end a year later with a conviction, you might find that you can’t get insurance.

And even if you do get insurance, can you just imagine how enormous your new quote will be from these people?

They’ll be rubbing their hands with glee and hammering you, because where are you going to go?

"I’m happy to fight any case in court

if people want me too.

But I also have to be honest

about what’s in their best interests too"

 

When it comes to fixed charge notices, leave emotions behind and apply logic.

You may find the whole thing quite unfair (“I’ve never even gotten a parking ticket in my life”) but you need to do what’s in your best interests.

Do what’s right for your long-term mental health too.

I have spoken to hundreds of clients over the years and the stress that these cases cause is considerable.

Women especially suffer very badly from remorseless self-criticism.

Paying the fixed penalty notice takes an awful lot of that away.

I’m happy to fight any case in court if people want me too.

But I also have to be honest about what’s in their best interests too.