Excess Alcohol and Special Reasons: Shortness of Distance Driven

When sentencing road traffic offences, the court often has the power to impose a driving disqualification or endorse the offender's driving licence.

A reminder on special reasons:

Sometimes, as in the case of drink driving, the court is obliged to disqualify the offender for a period of at least 12 months. Similarly, in the case of a driver accumulating 12 or more penalty points on their licence, the court is obliged to disqualify the offender for a period of at least 6 months.

However, as most readers will be aware, for all these are termed obligatory disqualifications, in practice there is another provision in law that sometimes allows a driver to avoid disqualification entirely - special reasons.

In accordance with section 34(1) of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, the court does not need to impose either a disqualification or endorsement if it is satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that there are special reasons not to do so. Those special reasons must be directly related to the offence, rather than the individual circumstances of the offender (in which case exceptional hardship might be a consideration instead).

The Court of Appeal has determined that in order to constitute a special reason (R v Wickens (1958) 42 Cr App R 436 (CA)), the court must be satisfied that the matter:

• Must be a mitigating or extentuating circumstance;
• Must be directly connected to the commission of the offence;
• Does not amount to a defence in law;
• Be one that the court ought properly to take into consideration when sentencing the offence.

If the court finds there are special reasons it may impose a lesser penalty than it ordinarily would. This could mean imposing fewer penalty points, penalty points as an alternative to disqualification, a shorter period of disqualification or a discharge in place of a financial penalty.

Even if the court finds special reasons, it can choose not to exercise its discretion in relation to sentencing.

Shortness of distance driven:

In the case of a driver convicted of an offence under section 4(1) or 5(1)(a) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, shortness of distance driven can be deemed a special reason by the court.

What constitutes shortness of distance is entirely a matter for the court, but in his judgment in the case of Chatters v Burke ([1986] 3 All ER 168) Watkins LJ highlighted seven key areas for consideration:

• How far the vehicle was driven;
• The manner in which the vehicle was driven;
• The state of the vehicle;
• Whether the driver intended to go further;
• The prevailing road and traffic conditions;
• Whether there was the possibility of danger by coming into contact with other road users or pedestrians;
• The reason the vehicle was being driven.

It is always useful for the Bench to put themselves in the shoes of the driver and consider if they might have taken the same decision to drive given the circumstances.

Case studies:

Below are two case studies of special reasons applications I am aware of, suitably anonymised and dampened by the passage of time. For all some of the finer details have been changed, the essence of each case remains.

1. The drunk driver and the fire engine:

The driver in this case, who I shall call Mr White, had driven to his local pub on a Saturday afternoon, as he had done every weekend since the dawn of time. He'd normally leave his vehicle in the car park, have a good few pints and bit of chat with his mates, then ring his wife to come and collect him in time for dinner. He'd then return to collect the car the following day. That was his normal routine, as corroborated by his wife, which the court was quite willing to accept.

On this particular afternoon the pub was much busier than usual because there was a very important local derby football match being shown on the big screen. By the time Mr White arrived the car park was jam packed, so he decided to park on the narrow lane at the rear of the pub. He wasn't keen on parking there, but needs must.

About an hour into his session, having already downed 2 or 3 pints, Mr White became aware of the sound of emergency sirens approaching, getting louder and louder until they were almost deafening just outside the pub.

A firefighter entered the pub, walked to the bar and told the staff that the fire appliance was responding to an emergency call and couldn't squeeze down the lane where Mr White's car was parked. Mr White's ears pricked up and he went outside to pull his car closer into the kerb so that the fire appliance could pass by. It was only a 30 second job and in total he moved the car no more than about 3 feet.

Unfortunately for Mr White an off-duty police officer, who had been dining with his family at the pub, had noticed the commotion outside and clearly taken umbrage at his standard of parking. The officer called the job in, which is how Mr White found himself in court.

Mr White admitted an offence of driving whilst the amount of alcohol in his breath exceeded the prescribed limit. He asked the court to consider if special reasons were applicable to his case.

Considering the seven points mentioned earlier, the Bench was quite satisfied that Mr White had driven the vehicle a very short distance of around 3 feet and had no intention of driving any further that day. Given the shortness of distance, there was no possibility of danger to other road users or pedestrians. There were no concerns about the condition of Mr White's vehicle or the manner in which it was driven. Given the circumstances, the Bench considered it quite reasonable that Mr White had attempted to assist the passage of the fire appliance by moving his vehicle closer into the kerb.

The Bench found that there were special reasons in this case, so Mr White was handed an absolute discharge and there was no disqualification or endorsement of his driving licence.

2. The rowdy hotel car park.

The driver in this case, who I shall call Miss Jones, had been visiting the city for a night out with friends. It was an important birthday party, so Miss Jones had planned the visit in advance and booked a city centre hotel for the evening. She parked up in the hotel car park, checked in and put her overnight bag in the room. She then freshened up and headed out for the evening. She had a really good night by all accounts, enjoying lots of good food, drink and company.

Miss Jones returned to the hotel at around midnight. Given its city centre location it was still quite busy, with plenty of revellers out on the street. She settled down for the night, but a short time later heard a commotion from the car park outside. She could hear a lot of shouting, swearing and glass smashing and thought that trouble was kicking off.

Miss Jones was worried about her car, so she quickly got dressed and went down to the reception desk to inform staff there might be a problem. She then went outside to check on her car, which was parked out of view from her room window. Walking across to her car she noticed broken glass bottles on the ground, but by now the rowdy voices were disappearing away down the street. When Miss Jones arrived at her car she found everything in order. However, for added reassurance Miss Jones decided to move her car to a space that would be visible from the window of her room. As luck would have it, the space right beneath her window was unoccupied.

Miss Jones hopped into the driving seat and manoeuvred the car the 50 yards or so to the other end of the car park. She got to the space and pulled in nose first. She was just about home dry when "crunch", she collided with the steel bollard at the edge of the bay. She had obviously clobbered the bollard with some force too, given the significant damage it had done to the front of her car. Miss Jones was distraught at the damage she had done to her car. She was sobbing uncontrollably and causing quite a commotion of her own. Hotel staff attended and called an ambulance, which arrived with the police a short time later.

It didn't take long for the officers to realise that Miss Jones was in drink and sure enough she blew positive on the Dräger. Miss Jones was arrested and subsequently charged with driving whilst the amount of alcohol in her breath exceeded the prescribed limit.

She admitted the offence, but asked the court to consider if special reasons were applicable to her case.

Considering the seven points mentioned earlier, the Bench were satisfied that Miss Jones only intended to drive her car from one end of the car park to the other. The vehicle, prior to the collision, had been in good condition - not so much afterwards. Despite the distance being fairly short, the Bench was of the view that there was a danger to other road users and pedestrians. Despite the early hour, there were still people milling about in the area. Miss Jones' driving was impaired to such an extent that she had totally misjudged the position of the steel bollard, if she had even noticed it at all. The Bench noted that the damage to Miss Jones' car indicated she had collided with the bollard with considerable force. Had the bollard given way, Miss Jones' car would have continued travelling in a dangerous and uncontrolled manner.

In this case the Bench found there were no special reasons. Miss Jones was sentenced and disqualified accordingly. 

Further reading:

Traffic Law in England, Wales and Scotland (aff. link), by K. M. Hughes.