UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Secretary of State’s Traffic Orders (Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 1987

the instrument as a whole of The Secretary of State’s Traffic Orders (Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 1987

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

Contravening this instrument is an offence under sections

5 and 17(4) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Not determined

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Secretary of State’s Traffic Orders (Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 1987.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to sections 5 and 17(4) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
20 December 1987
In force from
3 February 1988
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations lay down the procedure to be followed by the Secretary of State in connection with the making of various types of traffic orders under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, and under Section 36B of the Road Traffic Act 1972. Regulation 3 specifies the orders to which the Regulations apply. These include traffic regulation orders, experimental traffic orders, speed limit orders and orders for exempting roads from the prohibition of the parking of vehicles on verges, central reservations and footways in respect of trunk roads, and orders being made in respect of non-trunk roads whether under sections 22 or 132 of the 1984 Act or under the reserve powers of the Secretary of State by virtue of paragraph 3 or under paragraph 7 of Schedule 9 to that Act. Regulations 4 to 10 lay down the procedure to be followed before the order is made. They provide for preliminary consultations with the police (regulation 4), publication of the proposals (regulation 5), objections to the order (regulations 6 and 9), public inquiries (regulations 7 and 8) and the modification of proposals (regulation 10). Provisions as to the making of the order and the subsequent procedure, including the publication of a notice of its making, the notification of the police, the local roads authority and objectors, and the provision of traffic signs, are contained in regulations 11 and 12. Certain of the above-mentioned requirements are modified in relation to certain classes of order by virtue of regulations 13 and 14. Schedules 1 to 3 contain particulars of the details to be included in the press notice of an order, of the requirements as to the display of notices of an order in the road itself, and of the requirements about making documents relating to an order available for public inspection. Schedule 4 relates specific unladen weight of vehicles to the corresponding maximum gross weight.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.59.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.59 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source