Special Reasons To Protect Your Licence 

Many of our clients when they first call us are unsure of their options and are extremely anxious about the outcome.. They are unaware of any legal defences that may be available and find it difficult to believe that it might be possible to defend offence they face by using loopholes.

Most motoring offences carry a mandatory endorsement of points or a mandatory disqualification. Even if your livelihood depends on your licence you cannot plead mitigation to avoid these because the court has no option but to impose the points or the disqualification. If this applies to you, you will be really worried and anxious about losing your licence, perhaps your job and may be your home.

Don’t worry there is a way of avoiding a disqualification and we can help you.

Speak to one our specialist road traffic defence solicitors to find out if you can avoid yours

If you have points and are likely to fall within the totting up procedure avoiding the endorsement of points can save your licence. If you do have points imposed you may have grounds to plead EXCEPTIONAL HARDSHIP, which is based on your personal circumstances.

Special reason arguments are not based on personal circumstances or exceptional hardship but on the facts of the case. The rules involved are complicated and to establish whether you would have a valid reason you should seek expert legal advice which we can provide.

Special reasons, if found, enable to the court to either not impose points or a ban at all or reduce the number of points or the period of the ban. It is an argument that can be used when you plead guilty or are found guilty of an offence and does not prevent you from arguing exceptional hardship if the court do not accept your special reason argument.

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If you have received a speeding ticket from an officer or the police process department you do not have to accept it. It is not technically an appeal as you are merely refusing to accept the penalty so your case will be processed through the court system and you will be sent a postal requisition or single justice procedure notice from the court.

You will then be asked if you are pleading guilty or not guilty. If you plead not guilty the matter will go to court.


This is a common argument which is difficult to establish as the court has to consider the following :

  • distance driven
  • the manner in which it was driven
  • the state of the vehicle
  • whether the driver intended to go further
  • the road and traffic conditions prevailing
  • whether there was a possibility of danger by coming into contact with other road users and pedestrians
  • what reason was the reason for the car being driven.

Therefore, the fact that you may have only driven a few metres will not necessarily suffice if you were on a busy road or car park, or the only reason you drove a short distance was that you were stopped by the police but had you not been stopped you would have driven further. Whether this argument applies to your case very much depends on the circumstances.

This is the most common argument relating to drink driving offences, but is not as straightforward as just proving that you had your drinks laced.

There are strict guidelines that the court must follow:

  • the defendant must be able to prove that his/her drinks were laced;
  • he/she did not know or suspect that his drink was “laced”; and
  • if his/her drink had not been laced the alcohol level in his/her blood would not have exceeded the prescribed limit.

It is a difficult reason to prove and has very limited success. It often involves expert evidence. The law in this area is complicated and you need to seek legal advice before taking on this argument.

Modern lifestyles and diets have seen many people increasingly suffering from acid reflux or oesophageal reflux (regurgitation from the stomach). When alcohol is consumed this can result in alcohol being brought up from the stomach and into the mouth. Even if the evidential machine is seen to be working correctly it can be the case that the presence of this alcohol in the mouth (usually caused by this acid reflux) can be enough to take the alcohol reading over the prescribed limit.

It may not be widely known that for a person to be charged with driving with excess alcohol then two specimens of breath need to be provided on an evidential device. Both specimens need to be considered by the Court when considering a special reasons argument relating to mouth alcohol.

In order to be successful with this argument and give the Court an option to use its discretion not to disqualify then the following must be satisfied:

  • The amount of alcohol consumed would be insufficient to produce a specimen of breath exceeding the legal limit;
  • On each occasion a specimen of breath was given mouth alcohol was present as a result of acid reflux; and
  • The addition of the regurgitated alcohol led to the readings exceeding the prescribed limit.

It may be preferable to argue the defence of necessity/duress of circumstance which would provide a complete defence rather than the special reasons argument of emergency, but the choice is not a simple one to make and very much depends on the circumstances surrounding your case.

It is always difficult to justify committing an offence in these circumstances and you should always seek legal advice.

If you are an employee then you would have a defence to driving without insurance if it was reasonable for you to assume your employer would have made insurance provisions.

However, if you are genuinely misled about insurance it may amount to special reasons, but forgetting to renew your insurance or failing to pay the premiums or taking a friends word for it without further investigation will not. So if you are asked to drive a car belonging to someone else you should always check your insurance covers you or their insurance covers you ask for sight of the documentation.