Travel Tips

Special Reasons Legal Defence

If you have been unfortunate enough to be accused of committing a motoring offence , then you will need to prepare yourself quickly in order to put forward a plausible defence. There are many aspects of the law that are open to interpretation and the prosecutor needs to correctly complete every stage of the accusation process or you could have grounds to contest the allegation.

A Special Reasons argument can be used to try to persuade the Magistrates, after giving evidence on oath, that it would not be appropriate in the circumstances to impose the penalty points. Special Reasons arguments are normally used in relation to avoiding bans in drink driving cases but, they can be used to avoid penalty points in relation to any of the endorsable offences.

When arguing a Special Reason, you are required to give evidence (under oath of course) that in the given circumstances it wouldn’t be fair to administer the penalty points. The most common case for people to argue Special Reasons is that it was an emergency, i.e. they were taking a badly injured passenger to A & E or were taking a woman who is having a baby to hospital and went a bit above the speed limit or ran a red light.

If the court deems that there were indeed Special Reasons in your circumstances, then you will not be issued any licence points. There aren’t any particular definitions of Special Reasons, however you will have to prove that your situation was one of the following:

1. A mitigating or extenuating circumstance

2. It must not be a legal / law based defence claim

3. It must be directly related to the offence in question

4. It must be something appropriate that the Court ought to take into consideration when deciding what punishment to impose.

The opportunity to argue Special Reasons is contained within Section 34 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

For more information about driving without due care and attention and for free legal motoring advice, visit pattersonlaw.co.uk

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