Section 1 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 requires a warning of intended prosecution for various offences, including speeding. A written notice of intended prosecution must specify the:

- nature of the alleged offence; and

- time of the alleged offence; and

- place of the alleged offence.

Failure to comply with the s. 1 provisions is a bar to conviction. There is a legal burden on the defendant to prove non-compliance.

"A notice cannot be 'amended'; if time permits, a fresh notice should be served or sent in lieu of the defective one. It was said obiter in R. v Budd [1962] Crim. L.R. 49 that there can be a conviction for dangerous driving only if it occurred in the road named in the warning of intended prosecution. In Shield v Crighton [1978] R.T.R. 494 a notice erroneously stated the name of a road some 80yds distant from the road where the offence was committed; it was said obiter that a written document misstating the place could be misleading, but as an oral warning had been given at the scene at the time, what is now s.1 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 had been complied with." - Wilkinson's Road Traffic Offences.

"It is submitted that where an error in the notice is as to the place, it is a question of fact and degree whether the defendant has been misled and that a misstatement is not ipso facto fatal if the defendant has not been misled by the misstatement." - Commentary in Wilkinson's.

"If no oral warning of intended prosecution is given to a motorist at the time when it is alleged he has committed an offence to which (what is now s. 1 of the 1988 Act) applies, and if subsequently within the period of 14 days allowed by (what is now s. 1(1)(c) of the 1988 Act) he gets for the first time notice of the intention to prosecute him in the form of a written document which inaccurately says, for instance, that he was committing an offence on the M4 when he was actually committing an offence on the M1, that would produce a state of affairs in which the motorist would be misled and in which the purposes of the provisions of (what is now s. 1 of the 1988 Act) to give the motorist due warning of intended prosecution at a time when the facts of the case are still fresh in his mind would be defeated." - Shield v Crighton [1974] RTR 494.