How do I legally defend myself against a traffic fine?

Don’t sign anything to the police

If the police stop you while you are driving and want to give you a penalty, do not agree to the penalty and do not sign anything. The police will no doubt persuade you that the administrative procedure will cost you more, and indeed, if you are only facing a few hundred in fines and you are aware that the needle on the speedometer was more to the right than it should have been, it is worth not dragging the matter out and simply paying. But if you’re not sure, ask the officer for a photo from the radar. Allow for a +- 3 km/h tolerance, which is what speed cameras are approved for in the Czech Republic. In practice, if you are travelling at 50 km/hr, the officer can only fine you if the speed is 54 km/hr and above. If the deviation was not observed and properly read, and you were still fined in the block procedure, you have violated the law.

Proceedings before the administrative authority

If you know you have been wrongly accused of an offence, administrative proceedings are the way to defend yourself. Proceedings before an administrative authority or even criminal proceedings deserve the advice of a lawyer. Here, the administrative authority is based on the facts of the case and the questioning of the police officers itself serves as evidence. However, such evidence is not always sufficiently convincing. Every detail can play a role. How the police acted, whether they correctly conducted and evaluated all the evidence and whether their actions are not open to challenge.

When someone else was driving

If you find a blue-striped envelope in your mailbox with a notice to pay a fine for, for example, speeding or parking, and you know you were not driving your car at the time, just tell the administrative authority the identity of the driver involved. However, if the police do not find the driver, they will still deal with you. You can then recover the amount from the driver through civil proceedings. The authorities are no longer interested in the excuse that a person close to you was driving. The owner of the vehicle has to ensure that the vehicle is used properly.

What do we do most often?

What are the most common offences and what do you face for committing them?

• Driving without a vignette – we have had a relatively short system of electronic vignettes in the Czech Republic. Remember that a police check can fine you up to CZK 5,000 and in administrative proceedings it can go up to CZK 20,000.
• Driving under the influence of alcohol – if you have more than 0.3 per millilitres of alcohol, you could face a fine of up to CZK 25,000 in administrative proceedings or a driving ban of up to 18 months. Another critical limit is 1 per mille of alcohol. If you exceed it, you commit a criminal offence, which is dealt with in court. The court can fine you up to 25,000 crowns, ban you from driving for up to 18 months and also deprive you of your liberty for up to 3 years. You will also have 6 penalty points added to your record.

• Running a red light – if you do not brake your car before the traffic light and drive through it when the light turns red, you can face a block fine of up to CZK 5,500 or an administrative fine of up to CZK 25,000, 6 penalty points and a driving ban of 1 to 12 months.
• Cycling under the influence of alcohol – having a few beers on a bike is a bit of a Czech hobby. However, a drunk cyclist is a serious risk in road traffic and can also be fined accordingly. If he or she has up to 1 per mille, the fine can reach 25,000, and above one per mille, the fine can be up to 50,000 crowns. On the other hand, even if the cyclist has a driving licence, he cannot lose it, nor can he receive penalty points.

• Driving with defective tyres – from the beginning of November until the end of March, you must fit your car with winter tyres if the road is covered with a continuous layer of snow, ice or frost. You should also assess the overall condition of your tyres, which should have the required tread depth (greater than four millimetres). Various cracks and excessive wear are also a problem. Driving on run-flat tyres or summer tyres in winter can result in a block fine of CZK 2,000, which can be increased to CZK 2,500 in administrative proceedings. If you commit such an offence, you will at least get off without points.
• Cracked windscreen – your car should be roadworthy and not endanger traffic safety. However, a damaged windscreen in the so-called wiping area does not meet this condition and you can be fined up to CZK 10,000 and receive 6 penalty points. If the damage to the windscreen covers more than 50% of the windscreen area, you can also have your small licence confiscated.
• Speeding – if you get carried away on the road with the prospect of the upcoming weekend and go a little bit faster than the speed limit, you could face a penalty depending on how much you exceeded the speed limit. If you drive faster than 40 km/h in the village or more than 50 km/h outside the village, this is a serious offence, which is generally dealt with in administrative proceedings. The risk is a block fine of CZK 7,000 – 25,000, the award of 6 points or a ban on driving (driving), specifically for 6 to 18 months.
  If you exceed the speed limit in a municipality by more than 20 km/h or outside it by 30 km/h or more, you can be fined CZK 3,500. In administrative proceedings, you can be charged up to CZK 10 000. You can also be given 4 points and banned from driving.
  The lower level is medium speeding, i.e. 10 km/h or more in or outside the village. In this case, you can expect two points and a fine of up to CZK 2,000 on the spot, and up to CZK 5,000 in administrative proceedings.
• Driving licence forfeiture – did you look at your licence the last time you received it and since then it has had a place in your document box where you don’t take it out? You might want to do this occasionally and check its expiry date. You can be fined up to 75,000 crowns, banned for 3 years and even imprisoned for up to one year for an expired licence.