1. WEIRD CASES
There are now over 3,000 different motoring offences that a motorist can commit under
English law. Someone in that rule-making department needs to get out more. One of the rules
is Regulation 104 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986. It makes it
an offence for anyone to drive in circumstances that mean they “cannot have proper control of
the vehicle.” Paul Railton and his pet dog have just given a new dimension to that rule.
Railton was recently convicted of driving a vehicle while “walking his dog” by holding on to its
leash through the car window as it padded briskly along the road.
When the police caught Railton he was driving in a 4x4 Nissan along a road in County
Durham, approaching a blind summit, with his pet lurcher on the end of lead that went through
the driver’s open window. After the case, at Consett magistrates’ court, he said “a lot of
people exercise their dog like that”. If that is the attitude of dog owners, perhaps the dogs
taken on ‘car walks’ should get equally lazy and opt to be pulled along on skate boards.
Railton was convicted, fined £66, ordered to pay £43 costs, and banned from driving for six
months as he already had nine penalty points on his licence.
The offence of driving while unable to have proper control of the vehicle has attracted some
other unusual prosecutions. In 2005, Sarah McCaffery, a nursery nurse from Northumberland,
was convicted of the offence, and fined £60, after she drove slowly round a bend with both
hands on the wheel but with an apple in one hand. During ten court hearings held over 13
months, prosecutors used photographic evidence from a spotter plane, film from a police
helicopter and video from a patrol car. It cost over £10,000 to secure the apple conviction.
The judicial duty to dispense justice punctually is an important one but there are limits. In
1996, a judge was given a written caution for not being in proper control of his vehicle while
he was driving with urgency to hear a case at Newcastle Crown Court. A police officer had
pulled him over when he saw the judge driving while using an electric razor to shave. More
reckless, however, was the conduct of Lady Teresa Manners, daughter of the Duke of
Rutland. In 1983 she was convicted of driving while not being in proper control of her car after
she was caught racing down the fast lane of the M6 while having only one hand on the wheel
because she was energetically and amorously involved in a “passionate embrace” with a man
in her passenger seat.
Gary Slapper is Professor of Law at The Open University. His new book Weird Cases is
published by Wildy, Simmonds & Hill.
These articles were published by The Times Online as part of the weekly column written by
Gary Slapper