Driving Offences

We have over 25 years’ of experience in defending road traffic cases and understand that this is a stressful time especially as often your driving licence is at risk. This may significantly impact your ability to do the school drop offs, your work or ability to care for others.

Our approach is to ensure that you have the best possible legal advice as soon as possible and provide you proactive advice as to what evidence or documentation you will require, whether you are pleading not guilty or guilty in order to obtain a lenient sentence. We can obtain and advise you on the strength of the evidence against you as well as any potential defence.

We can advise you on returning a Notice of Intended Prosecution, totting up, applying to remove disqualification early, apply for special reasons or hardship.

We have acted for clients who have been investigated or prosecuted for:

• Speeding
• Using a mobile phone whilst driving
• Driving without insurance
• Driving without a licence
• Drink driving
• Drug driving
• Drunk in charge of a vehicle
• Careless driving
• Dangerous driving
• Death by dangerous driving
• Death by careless driving
• Driving whilst disqualified
• Failing to stop
• Failing to report an accident
• Failing to identify a driver
• Fixed Penalty Notices
• Construction and use offences – exceeding the permitted axle weight, road worthiness of vehicles
• Drivers’ hours

What should you do if you have received a summons?

If you have received a summons to attend court you should:

• Contact us immediately to arrange legal advice on your position, the evidence against you, any defences you may have, whether you should plead not guilty or guilty and the likely outcome.
• We offer a fixed fee service as Legal Aid is not usually available for road traffic matters but we are happy to advise you as to whether you are likely to be granted this. You may also already have an insurance policy in place to cover legal costs. We will ensure that you clear about what your costs will be right from the outset.

Will I be disqualified?

Disqualification depends upon the offences that you face and whether you have a history of driving offences. We can advise you if you are at risk of disqualification. Some speeding offences can attract a short period of disqualification. Some offences will attract a mandatory period of disqualification.

If you have acquired 12 or more points on your licence (totting up) within a 3 year period you could face a 6 month disqualification.

If you are at risk from disqualification then it is imperative that you contact us without delay. We may be able to argue that you should not be disqualified or disqualified for a shorter period of time.

Drink Driving

If you have been charged with the following offences it is important that you seek legal advice:

• Driving, or attempting to drive a motor vehicle on the road or other public place after consuming so much alcohol that the proportion of it in the persons breast, blood or urine exceeds the prescribed limit. Road Traffic Act 1988 section 5(1) (a)
• In charge of a motor vehicle on the road or public place after consuming alcohol so that the proportion of it in the persons breath, blood or urine exceeds a prescribed limit Road Traffic Act 1988 s 5(1)(b)

If the police suspect that a person is driving or attempting to drive a motor vehicle on the road or other parts of public place with alcohol in their body , they can carry out of roadside breath test if you fail the test, it is likely that you will be arrested and taken to the police station so that they can gather an evidential sample. This type of offence is dealt with only in the magistrates court.

What is the drink drive limit?

The limits for the alcohol limits are very strict:

• Breath 35 µg of alcohol per 100 mL of breath
• Blood 80 mg per hundred millilitres of blood
• Urine 107 mg per hundred mL of urine.

What is the sentence if you are convicted of drink driving?

Drink driving

You will be disqualified from driving for at least 12 months and up to 36 months if this is the first offence of drink-driving within a 10 year period. You will also be required to pay costs and a  fine. Dependent on the reading the court can also impose a prison sentence a time of imprisonment for up to 26 weeks.

Being drunk and in charge

If convicted or you plead guilty to being drunk and in charge of a vehicle the period of disqualification is up to 12 months disqualification, period of imprisonment for up to 6  weeks a fine and costs.

Your Mitigation

It may be that you accept that you were over the limit but require legal representation in order to personalise your mitigating circumstances and put this forward to the court in order to obtain a lenient sentence, in many cases, this is because the period of disqualification can affect employment, prospects and status.

If this is if you have a drink drive conviction within a 10 year period from the date of this offence, the minimum period for disqualification is 3 years.

Potential Defences

We are able to advise you on the strength of the evidence against you, and on your particular circumstances to see whether you have a defence in law against the charge. This could be from procedural errors, reliability of the readings, you were not in fact, driving and not on a road or public place or that you consumed alcohol after the police stopped you driving.

In relation to being drunk in charge, this is usually an offence which is prosecuted where the police are unable to prove that the person was in fact, driving the vehicle whilst drunk. Here the court will consider whether where you were in relation to the vehicle itself. What you were doing at the time of the events, whether the whether you had possession of the keys, or whether the key was still in the ignition and whether you were in or in control of the vehicle at any point.

For being drunk in charge of a vehicle in order to be found not guilty for this offence, you must be able to prove that there was no intention or likelihood of the vehicle being driven, whilst the driver was over the prescribed limit in accordance with section 52 of the Road Traffic Act.

Special reasons

This is where you may not have a defence, but there may be special reasons surrounding your circumstances which permits the court to disqualify for a shorter period or not disqualify you. The special reasons must be a mitigating extenuating circumstances and must not amount in law to a defence to the allegation. They must:

• Must be directly connected with the commission offence.
• Must be something we should go to properly take into consideration when imposing sentence

If you are successful in advancing, a special reasons argument it will enable the court to depart from the minimum 12 month period of disqualification. A special reason argument could be a spiked drink or emergency situation.

Drink Driver Rehabilitation Course

If you plead guilty or found guilty, you can ask the court to offer you the Drink Driver Rehabilitation Course and if accepted at the sentence hearing can result in a reduction of up to 25% of the period of disqualification. It is a matter for the court as to whether they offer you this course and if offered you will have to pay the cost of this.