Driving Licence revoked

[st13phil]

Well of course you should not drive around without insurance,but I think this young girl had better get some legal help at the court,she needs to get the penalty down to 3 pts then at least it is not a complete disaster.

Driving without insurance is an absolute offence, i.e. you are either insured or not, and if not - regardless of the reason - you are guilty of the offence. Also, unless there are Special Reasons not to endorse that are accepted by the Court then the minimum sanction is 6 penalty points which will lead to licence revocation.

The best possible position would be if the young lady in question could persuade the insurance company to confirm that she was, actually, insured to drive when the alleged offence was detected. This may be possible if, for example, the insurer did not follow their own procedure for giving notice of cancellation.

Alternatively, she may avoid sanction if she can convince the Court that she was unaware that the insurance policy had been cancelled and was therefore driving with the reasonable belief that insurance was in place. The likelihood of this would be low if the insurer has followed their published procedure for giving notice of cancellation, and doubly unlikely if her bank had also informed her that a Direct Debit payment to the insurer had been declined due to lack of funds. However, if the Court can be convinced that she had the honestly held belief that insurance was in place at the time of the alleged offence then it may be accepted as a Special Reason not to endorse her licence.

The final option is that she persuades the Court to impose a short ban (disqualification) instead of the penalty points. This would avoid the need to re-apply for a Provisional Licence and take her test again, but from what I understand would take both a very well-argued case and a sympathetic Bench.

Bearing in mind that she is apparently under some considerable financial pressure already, it would seem that her paying for representation is unlikely, so the most likely outcome is 6 points and revocation of her licence. Unless she really didn't get any notification that her policy had been cancelled in which case she needs to be engaging with her insurer's formal complaints procedure straight away.

 

[Dave.tam]

I think the confusion lies in that she is between numbers 1 and 2.

From what I can make out, she has been stopped, and has to attend court, but has not been to court yet.

Please correct me if I'm wrong AMGeed! Lol

If this is correct, she can still drive until the points have been awarded at court, as long as she is now properly insured.

I have to agree about the post etc. If after she attends court, she still doesn't recieve notification, I'd still says she unable to drive, despite legislation saying she needs to be notified by the SoS.

 

[Dave.tam]

The way I see it is that revoking the license is not part of the judgment / court system.

The judgment was a fine and points. No ban was imposed by the court.

What the DVLA does with the points is an administrative issue for them - revoke the license or not - and that's separate to the court system.

So the question is (as posted previously) at what point does the license become revoked? As soon as the points are acquired, or when the DVLA decides to revoke it?

The fact that this particular case went to court does not seem to be relevant here. And the judge did not tell her to surrender her license.

The thing with this is though, the police can't offer someone an endorsable fixed penalty notice if it means that the person receiving it falls into the "toting up" category. We MUST send that person to court. (Unless that's changed and I'm unaware of course!)

 

[brucemillar]

The thing with this is though, the police can't offer someone a fixed penalty notice if it means that the person receiving it falls into the "toting up" category. We MUST send that person to court. (Unless that's changed and I'm unaware of course!)

Which was the point (no pun) that my Barrister friend was making. Either she has been to court and a judgement has been issued. That judgement is effective immediately.

Or.

She has not been to court and No judgement was made.

I am still of he view that when the Clerk to the court asked for license! She would have been made aware at that point, of the repercussions of any judgement issued. The court would have asked her to surrender her license which the court would send to the DVLA. Meanwhile she will have been told that she would have her license revoked under the totting up procedure so would effectively be banned in the court room.

 

[Dave.tam]

I agree totally.

 

[st13phil]

The law is far from black and white. This is why good lawyers get paid stupendous amounts of money to find loopholes, or parts of legislation that are open to interpretation to get their clients off on a technicality.

I quite agree Dave, but all we've managed to ascertain in the discussion so far is that there are different opinions as to how it works procedurally with respect to the New Driver provisions, for which the relevant legislation clearly states that it is the responsibility of the Secretary of State to give notice and revoke the licence.

From what Roger posted yesterday, this particular case hasn't actually seen the inside of a courtroom as yet, so all the discussion about whether she is or isn't currently in possession of a valid Drivers Licence as a result of being awarded 6 points for the offence by the Court is irrelevant: she hasn't. However, that leaves open the question of disposal by way of a FPN.

I don't know the answer to this one, but maybe you do? I know that an FPN cannot be issued to a driver if its acceptance would result in them being banned (disqualified) under the totting up rule, so the offence would be reported for summons instead. But what about a New Driver? Can a FPN be issued to a New Driver even if by accepting it they would end up with 6 or more points on their licence (but less than 12)? I suspect that it can because a licence can only be revoked once under the New Driver provisions. This means that the Officer issuing the FPN would not know with certainty that the licence holder hadn't already had a licence revoked, taken their test again and been issued with a "new" licence. If this is the case then it makes perfect sense and ties in with it being an administrative function by the DVLA acting on behalf of the SoS to give notice of revocation and revoke the licence.

 

[markjay]

The thing with this is though, the police can't offer someone an endorsable fixed penalty notice if it means that the person receiving it falls into the "toting up" category. We MUST send that person to court. (Unless that's changed and I'm unaware of course!)

The example previous given was of a new driver getting two separate sets of 3 points each on two different occasions, thus reaching the 6 points mark (and license revocation) without ever appearing in Court.

 

[Dave.tam]

Unfortunately I have no idea! I'm not a traffic officer, so this isn't my bread and butter. The only advice I can give is from the perspective of a layman in regards to this specific offence, with a bit of inside knowledge.

I asked a supervisor about this yesterday, and he was of the understanding that it would be as I've described, which reinforced my own thoughts on the matter, but he's not traffic either.

In London, the chances are that the young lady would have been stopped and dealt with by a non traffic unit and dealt with the same way that I would deal, i.e. Sent to court, as if a fixed penalty notice was issued, she would have her licence revoked through the totting up rule, and we're taught that this isn't allowed.

Do we not have any current traffic officers on this site who can clear this up? Or all they all sitting back reading all this and laughing quietly to themselves! Lol

 

[Dave.tam]

The example previous given was of a new driver getting two separate sets of 3 points each on two different occasions, thus reaching the 6 points mark (and license revocation) without ever appearing in Court.

But the driver should never be given any points if it took the total to 6 for a new driver or totalled 12 for anyone else. They must be sent to court.

If a mistake was made, and an endorsable FPN was issued by a Poilce officer which took the driver over the 6/12 points, then it SHOULD be picked up by someone administering the ticket, who should then void the ticket and issue a summons for that driver to attend court.

 

[Dryce]

If a mistake was made, and an endorsable FPN was issued by a Poilce officer which took the driver over the 6/12 points, then it SHOULD be picked up by someone administering the ticket, who should then void the ticket and issue a summons for that driver to attend court.

Well maybe if somebody could confirm that a check is made at 6 points for a new driver when an offence is being processed.

Or whether the process is that no bsuch check is performed and the system simply issues points and the DVLA are then left to detect that 6 points are accumulated and revoke.

 

[Dave.tam]

It's down to the officer dealing with the offence to find out how many points someone has on their licence prior to issuing an endorsable FPN, but I am aware that mistakes are made, in which case, any FPN submitted gets checked by admin before being processed.

 

[219]

Driving without insurance is an absolute offence, i.e. you are either insured or not, and if not - regardless of the reason - you are guilty of the offence. Also, unless there are Special Reasons not to endorse that are accepted by the Court then the minimum sanction is 6 penalty points which will lead to licence revocation.

The best possible position would be if the young lady in question could persuade the insurance company to confirm that she was, actually, insured to drive when the alleged offence was detected. This may be possible if, for example, the insurer did not follow their own procedure for giving notice of cancellation.

Alternatively, she may avoid sanction if she can convince the Court that she was unaware that the insurance policy had been cancelled and was therefore driving with the reasonable belief that insurance was in place. The likelihood of this would be low if the insurer has followed their published procedure for giving notice of cancellation, and doubly unlikely if her bank had also informed her that a Direct Debit payment to the insurer had been declined due to lack of funds. However, if the Court can be convinced that she had the honestly held belief that insurance was in place at the time of the alleged offence then it may be accepted as a Special Reason not to endorse her licence.

The final option is that she persuades the Court to impose a short ban (disqualification) instead of the penalty points. This would avoid the need to re-apply for a Provisional Licence and take her test again, but from what I understand would take both a very well-argued case and a sympathetic Bench.

Bearing in mind that she is apparently under some considerable financial pressure already, it would seem that her paying for representation is unlikely, so the most likely outcome is 6 points and revocation of her licence. Unless she really didn't get any notification that her policy had been cancelled in which case she needs to be engaging with her insurer's formal complaints procedure straight away.

This has been my thought from the beginning .

Assuming she has yet to go to court , the young lady needs to ask her insurer to show that they notified her ( or tried to ) that they were about to cancel her policy . Cancelling the policy without any notice would , to my mind , be unlawful , since she could have been away on a trip somewhere with her car , and they MUST give reasonable notice so that she can take it off the road before it becomes uninsured .

If the insurance was just stopped , without any attempt to contact her , the young lady may have a very good case against her insurer to recover any financial losses occurring from this incident .

Having said the above , I rather think they will have written to her and possibly attempted contact by telephone , email or other means , and will have these attempts on record .

 

[ashenfie]

My view is that it's highly unlikely that notice has not been served on the young lady in question, so by deduction the revocation is active and she must confirm the situation with the DVLA to gain certainty. Under the circumstances, it is foolish in the extreme to be driving. However...

As noted in Driver15's post above, licence revocation under the Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1995 (see Section 3) does actually require that the licence holder be served notice of the revocation by the Secretary of State, i.e. by the DVLA, and not the sentencing Court, and the revocation "shall have effect from a date specified in the notice of revocation which may not be earlier than the date of service of that notice".

Whether she has physically received notice or not is largely - but not totally - irrelevant as service will be assumed to have occurred in line with the Interpretation Act if the DVLA have a record that it was sent.

There is no need. The Court order is just that and waiting for the DVLA to do there admin is a good way of be prosecuted once more.

The girls attitude issues will get her into further trouble, what more worries me is the her total disregard of other and the affect her actions my have on others.

Sadly insure is expensive and the rules for young drivers also harsh, but this is no excuse.

 

[gramey]

Sorry but I lost the will to live after reading the first 3 pages so skipped to the chase. The lady in question here will have been sent at least two letters by her insurance company advising her that payment had failed and in order for her cover to continue she would have 7/14 days (depending on company) to bring her payments up to date. She should also have received notification from her bank that attempts have been made to draw down a direct debt but there were insufficient funds.

So that clears up the bit about her not knowing she didn't have insurance, 99.9% of drivers give this lie when they get stopped in the hope that it's believed and their car won't get seized.

There are numerous comments regarding a ban being immediate etc. but a ban is completely different to a revocation. A defendant is told when they are disqualified (banned) that with immediate effect they are no longer entitled to drive and if they have driven to court, some stupidly do, they need to make alternative arrangements to get home. A new driver under the current legislation is notified that due to the accumulation of 6 points within their first two years their licence will be revoked. This is not immediate but as stated they will be sent a letter by the DVLA advising them that this has happened and the revocation applies from the date of the notice. They then have 5 days from the date of the letter in which to surrender their licence. As the driver has been informed this will happen if they have not received notification within an appropriate timescale, generally within 14 days, the onus is on them to confirm their licence status with the DVLA prior to continuing to drive.

As far as getting legal advice to get the points reduced or replaced with a short ban the matter has already been dealt with at court and any appeal is pointless. The statutory penalty for no insurance is 6 points, the magistrates to the best of my knowledge do not have the power to over rule this and replace it with a alternative penalty.

 

[CabrioDave]

I think ŷou're right on all the procedural matters, gramey.

Sadly, in willing to live, you missed the bit where we found out that she's not yet been to court.

 

[CabrioDave]

Ooh. How did I manage to do a y-circumflex in my posting above?

(And who would need one??)

 

[moonloops]

Bottom line is that the judge (if there is a prosecution) will ignore what is stated in the law and rely on what the intention of the law was.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[CabrioDave]

Bottom line is that the judge (if there is a prosecution) will ignore what is stated in the law and rely on what the intention of the law was.

Hope that makes sense.

Well, the grammar and words form sense, but I think we can rely on the magistrate/judge to follow the law. The intention of the law, surely, is that the licence be revoked, and that will happen (in due course). Another intention of the law is that courts follow the law ...

 

[clk320x]

Believe it's instant. Unlucky for her

 

[gramey]

Bottom line is that the judge (if there is a prosecution) will ignore what is stated in the law and rely on what the intention of the law was.

Hope that makes sense.

It's a summary only offence so it will be dealt with by a magistrates court, the only time it would be dealt with by a judge is if the person appealed against sentence conviction or both. Given that no insurance is an absolute offence if you haven't got it then it's difficult to appeal against. As for sentence they would need to put forward a compelling case as to why the magistrates should veer away from the sentencing guidelines laid down. It's not impossible but there is no legal aid for motoring offences so a solicitor capable of persuading a court to do so won't come cheap. On top of this the young lady in question will still be walking away with a conviction for no insurance so any insurance she subsequently takes out won't be cheap.