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If you have been caught committing a motoring offence then you will need to act fast in order to be prepared. There are many areas of the law that are open to interpretation, everything needs to be completed correctly by the prosecuting officer otherwise you may well have grounds to contest the case.
If you believe that the particular circumstances under which you committed the driving offence should exempt you from some or all of the punishment, then you can make a Special Reasons argument. These are most commonly used to avoid bans in drink driving cases, however they are sometimes used to avoid penalty points for other offences as well or driving through a red light.
When you argue Special Reasons you will have to provide evidence under oath that given the situation you were in it would be unfair to issue penalty points. The most common reason given is that they had an emergency i.e. there was a seriously injured passenger who they were taking to the hospital and exceeded the speed limit or ran a red light.
If your case is found to have a Special Reason, then you will not be given any penalty points. There are however no strict guidelines as to what constitutes a Special Reason, but it must fall under one of the following:
1. A mitigating or extenuating circumstance
2. It must not amount in law to a defence to the allegation
3. It must be directly connected to the commission of the offence
4. It must be something appropriate that the Court ought to take into consideration when deciding what punishment to impose.
Section 34 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act of 1988 is where you will find mention of the Special Reasons argument.
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