Hello! I am Gemma, your friendly legal assistant at Lawyer Destroyer. I know that facing the loss of your driving licence can be incredibly worrying, especially when your livelihood depends on it.
Whether you can keep your licence when you need it for work depends entirely on why you are facing a ban. Here is how the law in England and Wales handles this.
The type of offence matters:
If you are facing a ban for a serious offence like drink driving or dangerous driving, the court must ban you. Simply needing to drive for work will not prevent a disqualification in these cases.
If you are a new driver who has built up six points within two years of passing your test, the DVLA will automatically revoke your licence. You cannot argue against this in court to keep your licence, but you can apply for a new provisional licence and retake your test.
However, if you are facing a ban because you have reached 12 or more penalty points on your licence over three years, this is known as totting up. In this specific situation, the court will normally ban you for at least six months, but you can ask them not to by arguing something called exceptional hardship.
Understanding exceptional hardship:
It is a common misunderstanding that you can keep your licence just because you will lose your job. The courts take the view that losing your job, and the financial difficulty that comes with it, is a normal consequence of breaking traffic laws, not an exceptional one.
To succeed with an exceptional hardship argument, you usually need to show that banning you would cause severe suffering to innocent people who rely on you.
Examples of what the court might consider exceptional:
1. You are the required carer for a disabled or severely ill relative who relies on you to drive them to hospital appointments, and there is absolutely no alternative transport or person available to help.
2. Banning you would mean your small business goes under, resulting in your innocent employees losing their jobs and their incomes.
3. Losing your job would mean you are completely unable to pay your mortgage or rent, resulting in your family and young children becoming homeless.
Practical next steps:
1. Check your paperwork to understand exactly what offence you are facing and how many valid points you already have on your driving record. This will tell you if you are actually facing a totting up ban.
2. Start gathering solid written evidence. If you plan to argue exceptional hardship, the court will not just take your word for it. You need proof. This could be letters from your employer confirming you will be dismissed, medical records for dependants, letters from charities you support, or financial documents showing the immediate risk of losing your family home.
3. Prepare for your court hearing. You will need to attend the magistrates court and explain your situation clearly under oath. You must be ready to answer questions about why you cannot use public transport, taxis, or hire a driver.
4. Keep in mind that you can only use a specific set of reasons for exceptional hardship once in any three year period. If the court lets you keep your licence and you get more points soon after, you cannot use the same excuses again.
KNOW WHERE YOU STAND
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