My Child Was Desperate For A Drink

Question:

Re: Alleged offence of: exceed 60mph – single carriageway (camera) speed detected was 70mph at hours on x

I am e-mailing to ask for your advice on the above alleged offence to which I can confirm I was the driver. The reason of the speed was due to the fact that I was trying to get to a petrol station to buy my 3 year old son some water as he was getting very distressed in the back and constantly wanting some water.

The reason for this distress from my son was due the fact we had returned from a delayed flight from x to x. Our flight was delayed 3 hours and then when actually arriving at x it took another 60 minutes to receive our luggage, in total my children had been traveling for over 10 hours without a proper meal or rest.

You can understand it is not easy traveling with children at this age and specially when flights are delayed.

The route we had taken to go home (x) was a route which had no petrol station or shops for us to make a stop at the time my son required a drink. As you can appreciate my child was very tired and hungry and he was constantly wanting a drink as he was repeatedly saying his throat was hurting.

Because of the late hour and the darkness of country lanes I had no choice but to hurry in order to get a drink for my child, hence the reason for the speed increase.

I would like to know if I would receive 3 points on my driving licence? I have already received previous 3 points on my licence for a similar incident of speed increase.

I have to drive my car everyday to take my children to and from school as we live 7 miles from their school, I also own a business employing 130 people and would suffer greatly from having points on my licence. I have been driving for over 17 years and never have received any other convictions.

I would really appreciate your support in this matter.

Dominic Says:

I understand how difficult the situation must have been for all of you.

You will get three points and a £60 fixed penalty for this offence. The only way you can try and avoid the points is to take the matter to court and persuade the magistrates that it was an emergency. If they don’t agree then they have no discretion to impose the points.

I’m afraid that I don’t think they will agree because they normally require it to have been a medical emergency before they will exercise their discretion. If you are really up for giving it a go then I will be happy to make the special reasons argument for you. The risk is higher fines and court fees if you lose. the points would not go up.

Come back to me if you would like to give it a go. Keep my details and if you require any help in the future then please do not hesitate to come back to me.