Little known motoring offences
DRIVING with a sat nav wrongly placed on your windscreen can land you with a £200 fine and six points on your licence.
And getting too close to a cyclist while overtaking can lead to a £100 fixed penalty ticket and three penalty points.
The two motoring offences are being highlighted by road safety organisation GEM Motoring Assist among five little known infringements which can land you in trouble.
The others are parking by a zebra crossing, driving with a defective tyre and attaching a non-compliant number plate.
According to the Highway Code, the recommended distance for passing a cyclist is 1.5 metres. If you are seen overtaking too close, you face prosecution.
And when it comes to number plates GEM is warning all drivers that they must show your vehicle registration correctly.
According to the DVLA, strict rules apply concerning fonts, styles and letter sizes. Non-compliance will lead to a £100 nonendorsable ticket and the DVLA has the power to cancel your right to use a cherished plate.
Other offences in the list are parking on the zig-zag lines found at pedestrian crossings unless it’s an emergency or the reason you stopped was beyond your control. If you do, you risk a £100 fine and three penalty points.
A tyre with less than 1.6mm of tread across the all-round central three-quarters can land you with £100 fine and three points. If more than one tyre is faulty, you will face a court hearing where you can receive a fine of up to £2,500 and three points per tyre.
And when it comes to siting a device on your windscreen, GEM points out that obstruction is measured in zones. Zone A refers to the area directly in front of you when you’re driving, and this area must not contain any obstruction measuring over 10mm in diame-
ter. Zone B refers to the rest of the windscreen, where stickers and other obstructions must not measure more than 40mm.
The Highway Code states that “windscreens and windows must be kept clean and free from obstructions to vision”.
So if you use a sat nav, then it makes sense to buy a holder you can insert into an air vent, rather than risk mounting it on the windscreen and a dashcam should be mounted between the rear-view mirror and windscreen.
If you do not have a ‘full view’ of the road and traffic ahead, you can be fined £200 with six points on your licence.
GEM road safety officer Neil Worth said: “We encourage all road users to brush up their Highway Code knowledge and to ensure that they are not putting themselves at unnecessary risk of a penalty ticket. The more we all know about our driving environment and the rules in place to keep us safe, the less we are likely to fall foul of them.”