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Some road traffic offences carry a fixed penalty whereas others carry a variable set of points where it is up to the court to decide what level of penalty you should receive. |
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In the UK, you start your “driving life” with a clean driver’s licence with no penalty points (in some countries you start with points and lose them if you commit offences). |
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There are special rules for “New Drivers.” If you receive 6 points or more in your first 2 years of driving (from the date you pass your driving test) you face the revocation of your driver’s licence. That means you have to retake your driving test! |
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If you receive 12 or more “relevant” penalty points within a 3 year period, you risk a “totting up” disqualification of 6 months (or longer if you have also been disqualified for 56 days or more in the 3 year period.) |
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Penalty points are “relevant” for a period of 3 years starting from the date of the offence, to the date of the offence. This is so as to prevent offenders deliberately delaying cases to try to circumvent the “totting up” rules. |
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If it is alleged that offences are “committed on the same occasion” then you should not receive penalty points for each offence. “Same occasion” has not been defined in law but typically it is interpreted to mean if during the course of the same journey. So, if you are unlucky enough to be zapped by a speed camera twice on the same day, you may be able to argue that you should only receive penalty points for one of the alleged offences. |
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Some offences such as drink driving and drug driving carry a mandatory minimum disqualification of 12 months. All endorseable offences (offences that carry penalty points) enable a court to impose a discretionary disqualification. |
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The shortest disqualification a court could impose is for 1 day although we are yet to come across a case involving such a short ban. |
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The longest driving ban a court could impose is for life! |
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Disqualifications of 56 days or more are key as they will be heavily frowned upon by insurers and if you are in trouble again for an offence that carries a totting up ban or a mandatory ban, you could face a longer disqualification on the next occasion. |
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Geoffrey Miller Solicitors are specialists defending drivers nationwide for all types of driving offences. Call our team of expert driving offence solicitors for some free initial advice.
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