18 July 2003
Our client is a draftsman who relies on his driving licence for work. If he lost his licence he would lose his job. He went through a GATSO speed camera at 42 mph in a 30 mph limit. He had 9 points on his licence. He had already in the last three years successfully run two separate exceptional hardship arguments, the first one being on the grounds that he would lose his job, the second that he would have to withdraw his son from the school he was at because he could not get him there without a car.
The future looked bleak as he was barred from repeating either of these hardship arguments within a statutory three year period. The Client advised me that he was asthmatic and that he had left his medication at home. He had felt an asthma attack coming on and, in panic, exceeded the speed limit.
Despite the fact that his doctor was not prepared to support his contention that the above would amount to a medical emergency and despite the fact that he and his wife gave conflicting evidence as to communications between them on the day and as to whether or not she could have taken his inhalers to him, the Magistrates were persuaded that special reasons existed for not endorsing his licence therefore removing the substantial and almost inevitable issue of disqualification.