In today's day and age, being caught by a speed camera is almost an occupational hazard.

If you are unfortunate enough to be caught speeding by one of these cameras, then you need to check out a number of legal matters which may just avoid your licence being endorsed, or worse still, avoid being disqualified from driving.

S1 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 - states that a Notice of Intended Prosecution must be sent to you within 14 days of the date of the offence.

Please note though that the duty to send such Notice of Intended Prosecution within 14 days, is a duty to send such Notice to either the Owner or Registered Keeper of the vehicle.

In cases where a vehicle is being driven by someone who has leased or hired the vehicle, the Notice will be sent initially to the hire or leasing company as either owners or registered keeper of the vehicle who then return the Notice identifying the person hiring or leasing, which can result in a further Notice of Intended Prosecution then being sent to the driver, but outside the 14 days.

This is permissible as the requirement to serve the Notice within 14 days only relates to service of the Notice on the owner or registered keeper in the first instance.

If you receive the Notice after 14 days because it has been sent out too late for you to receive it, in the ordinary course of post, then, under S1 above, it is a complete defence to a summons for speeding.

The Notice of Intended Prosecution will usually refer to photographic evidence available to substantiate the offence. Do write back and request copies of such photographs, as sometimes the quality is poor and the registration number of the vehicle can be misread on the photographs with the result that it can actually be someone else's vehicle.

If the Notice of Intended Prosecution has been properly sent to you within 14 days and the photographic evidence shows it is your vehicle, you may be offered a Conditional Offer of Fixed penalty.

Accepting this procedure will result in three penalty points and a fixed £60 fine. If you do not accept such Offer or fail to respond to such offer within 28 days, then the matter has to be dealt with by way of summons.

Unless you dispute the offence, you would be well advised to accept any such offer, as failure to do so will result in a summons being issued, an unnecessary appearance in court, and the risk that the court may impose more than three points and a higher fine, as well as costs.

The law is, in such cases , that effectively the document leading to the issue of a summons must be lodged at court within six months of the date of the offence, as otherwise, it is time-barred and you have a complete defence.

Again, note that provided the document leading to the issue of the summons has been lodged at court within six months of the date of the offence, it matters not that the court then serve you with the summons after the six month period.