This blog post is inspired by a discussion on the Forrest Williams Facebook page.

The media does a disservice to our typical clients, who all require our services because of motoring law problems such as speeding, driving without insurance, failing to disclose the driver’s details, careless driving and other such motoring offences.

While the media might portray anyone who faces a motoring matter as being a ‘reckless driver’, the reality is that this is rarely the case.

Take a recent client as an example.

This man was a well-respected surgeon who was relied upon by the hospital where he worked to perform the most complex surgeries at very short notice, on 24 hour call when necessary.

He had a long, clean driving history with no penalty points on his driving licence.

He did, however, live at a house with a similar name to another house nearby.  He had many problems with the post at his house not arriving.

One day, his insurance company wrote to him asking for confirmation of a couple of administrative details.  He did not receive this letter, and his insurance policy was cancelled with no further warning.

Soon after, he was stopped and charged with driving without insurance.  He received 6 penalty points for this.

Following this, his young son was driving his vehicle and was flashed by a speed camera.  Again, the postal system caused problems as the Notice of Intended Prosecution did not reach our client, and he was charged with Failing to Disclose the Driver’s Details.  Another 6 points, and he is at 12 points, where he will be disqualified under the totting up provisions unless he can prove Exceptional Hardship will be suffered by him or others.

Before this matter had been processed, he was travelling to a new hospital where he had been assigned and made the easy mistake of believing that a 30mph road was actually a 40mph road.  Two days in a row, at 3am when leaving his shift at the hospital, he drove on this road at 36mph – two separate 3 penalty point speeding offences.

Suddenly, our client has gone from a perfectly clean licence to reaching 18 penalty points on his driving licence.

These are the stories we hear regularly.

They are, of course, far too dull and uncontroversial for the media to be interested in, and so they continue to feed the idea of ‘reckless drivers’ trying to ‘get off’.

We should all be careful not to judge a story until we know all of the details.

Tags: exceptional hardship