Most people will go from the day they pass their test, until the day they pass on, without accruing a large number of penalty points on their driving license. Not that amassing points and facing a fine and a ban is the main source of people’s aversion to disobeying the rules of the road – most of us just want to get from a, to b, to anywhere, safely.
However, it seems that a legal loophole exists that has allowed an astonishing number of drivers to stay behind the wheel legally, despite racking up more than the 12 points accrued within three years, usually required for a lengthy ban.
The ‘exceptional hardship’ loophole
According to figures obtained by the Daily Mail, it seems that, among the many millions of us who take to the roads each day, exist more than 10,000 drivers who still hold their driving license – despite reaching 12 or more penalty points on their licence. So, this isn’t a case of drivers avoiding court, or even being caught out on the road – these are drivers who have been to court and yet kept their license.
Astonishingly, one man in particular has avoided a ban despite collecting a monumental 66 penalty points! Meanwhile, two individuals have reached 60 points, and many more have long since exceeded 12. Each of the more than 10,000 drivers who make up these concerning statistics has avoided a ban after proving ‘exceptional hardship’, in court.
Essentially, this means they have proved that having their license revoked would adversely impact their life or the lives of others. Being unable to work, for instance, could count as forcing ‘exceptional hardship’ on the individual in question, while being unable to drive relatives to medical appointments is another.
As you can imagine, then, judges do approach every ‘exceptional hardship’ situation on a case-by-case basis. Still, the Sentencing Council for England and Wales has nonetheless called for stricter guidelines to magistrates who issue bans.
Hopefully, then, despite the high number of drivers who have – due to the exceptional hardship loophole – evaded a ban, there are many more cases of reckless drivers who are taken off the road. It must be added that even those who do keep their licence don’t exactly get off ‘scot-free’.
Having points on your driving licence, with or without a ban, would usually ramp up insurance premiums and could lead to applying for convicted driver insurance – which does impact the price paid to keep a vehicle on the road.
Breaking down the figures even further, then, of the 10,589 motorists who have remained on the road despite obtaining 12 penalty points or more, 8,797 are men – almost five times the 1,792 women who’ve successfully claimed ‘exceptional hardship’ to avoid a ban.
It is likely that every driver who has made their way through this legal loophole also received some sort of fine, but the frequency and amount of these fines is not currently known. The record fine dished out in the UK for a motoring offence was issued to footballer Mario Lemina in 2018, when he was ordered to pay £96,425 after breaking the speeding limit three times.
However, this fine was later reduced to just £2,301 after it emerged that he had been sentenced under guidelines for an incorrect charge. It does seem that the current system has a number of legal loopholes that people can and will exploit.
