Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act 1960
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1960 c. 63 |
Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act , 1960
(8 & 9 Eliz. 2) CHAPTER 63
An Act to facilitate the enforcement and administration of the law relating to road traffic and to vehicles on roads by providing for the punishment without a prosecution of offences in connection with lights or reflectors on vehicles, or with obstruction, waiting, parking and kindred matters, and for the employment of traffic wardens in aid of the police; to amend the law with respect to parking places; the regulation of traffic and the costs of removing and storing vehicles and to provide for the disposal of abandoned vehicles; to make temporary amendments of the law relating to highways in the metropolitan police district and the City of London; to make provision as to the effect of regulations made or having effect as if made under section sixty-four of the Road Traffic Act, 1960; and for purposes connected with or arising out of the matters aforesaid.
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Enforcement and Administration of traffic Laws
1 Punishment without prosecution of offences in connection with lights, reflectors, obstruction, &c.
(1) This section shall apply to any offence created by or under an enactment and punishable on summary conviction, being an offence committed in respect of a vehicle—
(a ) by its being left or parked on a road during the hours of darkness (as defined by the Road Transport Lighting Act, 1957) without the lights or reflectors required by law; or
(b ) by its obstructing a road, or waiting, or being left or parked, or being loaded or unloaded, in a road; or
(c ) by the non-payment of the charge made at a street parking place:
Provided that this section shall extend only to such areas as the Secretary of State may by order specify, and he may by order exclude the application of this section to any offence.
(2) Where a constable finds a person on any occasion and has reason to believe that on that occasion he is committing or has committed an offence to which this section applies, he may give him the prescribed notice in writing offering the opportunity of the discharge of any liability to conviction of that offence by payment of a fixed penalty under this section; and no person shall then be liable to be convicted of that offence if the fixed penalty is paid in accordance with this section before the expiration of the twenty-one days following the date of the notice or such longer period (if any) as may be specified therein or before the date on which proceedings are begun, whichever event last occurs.
(3) Where a person is given a notice under this section in respect of an offence proceedings shall not be taken against any person for that offence by any constable or local authority until the end of the twenty-one days following the date of the notice or such longer period (if any) as may have been specified therein.
(4) In the foregoing subsections ‘proceedings’ means any criminal proceedings in respect of the act or omission constituting the offence specified in the notice under subsection (2), and ‘convicted’ shall be construed in like manner.
(5) Payment of a fixed penalty under this section shall be made to such justices' clerk (within the meaning of section twenty-seven of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1949) as may be prescribed, and sums paid by way of fixed penalty for any offence shall be treated for the purposes of that section as if they were fines imposed on summary conviction for that offence; and in any proceedings a certificate that payment of a fixed penalty was or was not made to the prescribed justices' clerk by a date specified in the certificate shall, if the certificate purports to be signed by the justices' clerk, be sufficient evidence of the facts stated, unless the contrary is proved.
(6) A notice under subsection (2) of this section shall specify the offence alleged, and give such particulars of the offence as are necessary for giving reasonable information of the allegation, and shall state also the period during which, by virtue of subsection (3) of this section, proceedings will not be taken for the offence, the amount of the fixed penalty, and the justices' clerk to whom and the address at which the fixed penalty may be paid.
(7) Where a constable finds a vehicle on an occasion and has reason to believe that on that occasion there is being or has been committed in respect of it an offence to which this section applies, he may proceed under this section as if he had found a person reasonably believed by him to be committing the offence, and for that purpose a notice affixed to the vehicle shall be deemed to be given to the person liable for that offence.
(8) A notice affixed to a vehicle under subsection (7) of this section shall not be removed or interfered with except by or under the authority of the driver or person in charge of the vehicle or the person liable for the offence in question; and any person contravening this subsection shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds.
(9) The fixed penalty for an offence shall be two pounds or one-half the maximum amount of the fine to which a person not previously convicted is liable on summary conviction of the offence, whichever is the less:
Provided that the Secretary of State may by order provide for the fixed penalty to be in any case more or less than two pounds (but not more than one-half the maximum amount of the fine to which a person not previously convicted is liable on summary conviction).
(10) In any proceedings for an offence to which subsection (1) of this section applies no reference shall be made after the conviction of the accused to the giving or affixing of any notice under this section or to the payment or non-payment of a fixed penalty thereunder unless in the course of the proceedings or in some document which is before the court in connection with the proceedings reference has been made by or on behalf of the accused to the giving or affixing of such a notice or, as the case may be, to such a payment or non-payment.
(11) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision as to any matter incidental to the operation of this section, and in particular—
(a ) for prescribing the form of notice under subsection (2), and the justices' clerk to whom a fixed penalty is payable; and
(b ) for prescribing the duties of justices' clerks, and the information to be supplied to them.
(12) The power of the Secretary of State to make orders or regulations under this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument, which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(13) An order of the Secretary of State under this section may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order of the Secretary of State.
(14) In the application of this section to Scotland—
(a ) any reference to a justices' clerk (within the meaning of section twenty-seven of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1949) shall be construed as a reference to a clerk of court (within the meaning of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1954);
(b ) in subsection (2) the words ‘before the expiration of the twenty-one days following the date of the notice or such longer period (if any) as may be specified therein or’ and the words ‘whichever event last occurs’ shall be omitted;
(c ) in subsection (3) the words ‘by any constable or local authority’ shall be omitted, and for the words ‘have been’ there shall be substituted the word ‘be’;
(d ) in subsection (5), for the words ‘that section’ there shall be substituted the words ‘determining their destination’; and
(e ) paragraph (b ) of subsection (11) shall not apply.
2 Traffic wardens.
(1) Subject to subsection (3) of this section, a police authority in England or Wales may appoint persons to discharge, in aid of the police, functions normally undertaken by the police in connection with the control and regulation of road traffic or with the enforcement of the law relating to road traffic; and persons so appointed shall act under the direction of the chief officer of police, but shall be deemed to be employed by the police authority.
(2) Persons employed under subsection (1) of this section shall be known as ‘traffic wardens’, and a police authority employing traffic wardens for the purposes of that subsection may also (subject to subsection (3) of this section) employ them to act, under the direction of the chief officer of police, for other purposes connected with the control and regulation of road traffic or road vehicles; and in particular—
(a ) where the police authority provides school crossing patrols under section forty-seven of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, whether as the appropriate authority or by agreement With the appropriate authority, the traffic wardens may be employed to act as school crossing patrols; and
(b ) the police authority may, under arrangements made with the Minister or a local authority, employ the traffic wardens to act as parking attendants at street parking places provided or controlled by the Minister or local authority.
(3) Traffic wardens shall not be employed to discharge functions other than those prescribed as appropriate for the purpose by order of the Secretary of State, and an order under this subsection may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order of the Secretary of State.
An order under this subsection shall be made by statutory instrument, and—
(a ) in the case of an order made before the first day of October, nineteen hundred and sixty, not being an...
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