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How many relevant points do I have on my driving licence? Am I at risk of disqualification?

When a motorist is convicted of an offence involving endorsement the penalty points that are taken into account are any that are attributed to the offence or offences for which they have just been convicted and any points that were endorsed on the licence on a previous occasion, provided the endorsement was not more than three years before the commission of the most recent offence.

If a licence holder has penalty points on their licence and is subsequently disqualified by way of an obligatory disqualification, so for example this type of disqualification is given for aggravated vehicle taking, or drink driving, then that disqualification will not wipe clean the licence and the previous penalty points will remain relevant for a period of three years. If, however, that person is disqualified as a totter under the penalty points system then a totting disqualification does have the effect of wiping the driving licence clean.

What is very important to note is that you count back three years from the commission date of the most recent offence. This often catches a number of people out who mistakenly count back three years from their forthcoming court date, this leads to a scenario when often I am having to advise people that they are at risk of a penalty points disqualification where they had previously believed they would be ok. It also often leads to the scenario where people are mistakenly trying to have their court hearing adjourned for various reasons to try and get outside the three year time limit. Of course this does not work because you count back from the commission date of the offence and not the court conviction date.

Driving licences themselves have been held to be effectively proof of their own contents. This means that where a person is convicted of an offence involving obligatory or discretionary disqualification or endorsement any existing endorsements on the licence are prima facie evidence of the matters shown. In addition, it is very likely that where somebody is at risk of a penalty points disqualification the court will have obtained a driving record print out from the DVLA in Swansea and this is deemed to be admissible under the Road Traffic Act.

Because the dates are so critical when deciding when a driver is at risk of disqualification under the penalty points system, the DVLA in Swansea will not allow penalty points to be removed from a licence for a four year period. This means that whilst points are only relevant for three years they remain on an individual’s driving licence for a period of four years. After this four year period the licence can be sent back to Swansea for it to be cleaned up.