What would you do to beat a traffic ticket if you absolutely knew you weren't guilty?
Few people would probably go as far as Dale Lyle did. But you certainly have to admire the distance he traveled to get justice.
Lyle is a 21-year-old finance worker from
Bristol, England who received a fine for speeding on Dec. 13, 2007. Police claimed they caught him going 160 kilometres an hour on photo radar tooling down a local highway where speeds are restricted to just 110.
When the outraged Honda Civic driver explained his 14-year-old vehicle could only reach a top speed of 136 km/h - and couldn't have been going as fast as cops claimed - authorities refused to listen, essentially telling him to prove it or pay a penalty which could have included a 6-month licence suspension and a Cdn$1,700 fine.
Lyle was determined to see justice done and keep his perfect driving record. So he decided to fight back.
He was forced to get back the car, which he had already sold to a friend and then spent Cdn.$1,000 to hire an independent driving expert to test the vehicle at a race track. The wheelman confirmed that the Honda wouldn't go past 136 no matter what gear he put it in.
But it still wasn't over.
The upset driver then got hold of the footage taken of his supposed offence. He spotted several other vehicles going faster than he was, and he maintains analysts erroneously identified his car instead of the real speeders.
In the face of so much overwhelming evidence, authorities finally backed off, dropping the case for good, officially citing a 'lack of evidence.'
That's not good enough for Lyle, who complains to the U.K.'s Daily Mail newspaper that the system 'picks on' innocent motorists, thinking most will simply avoid the hassle and pay the money.
He's not done with them yet. He now plans to go back to court, this time on the other side, seeking more than Cdn$2,100 in cash he claims he put out trying to prove he didn't do anything wrong in the first place.
File photo