Points - expired for totting up but still on your license

[crikey]

Why is this ?

If they have expired as far as "totting up" is concerned why do they have to stay on your license for another year ?

[SS2.]

AIUI, points remain on a licence for a year after they cease to be 'valid' to assist the court system in determining the currently active points for the purposes of totting ie. if points were removed immediately they ceased to be valid, then they may get 'overlooked' upon conviction of another offence which occurred whilst those points were still valid.

[EU_Foreigner]

But the point is that they are no longer valid for the purpose for totting up, so why would removing them make any difference to a court?

[flemke]

Perhaps the reasoning is simply that the bureaucracy needs a year to figure out what it has done.

[crikey]

EU_Foreigner said:

But the point is that they are no longer valid for the purpose for totting up, so why would removing them make any difference to a court?

I understand SS2's explanation (thanks for that btw) to mean that it avoids the following scenario:

Driver X has 9 points on his license, 3 of which expire on August 1st. On July 31st he gets caught doing 40 in a 30.

If he were alowed to removed the 3 expired points on his license on 1st August then by the time he gets to court all they are aware of is 6 points, so he gets another 3 and is sent on his way despite the fact that at the time of the offense he actually had 9 points so another 3 would have put him on 12 and a possible ban.

It still seems wrong to me though, surely the DVLA know how many points anyone has at any given moment in time so why do the courts rely on what written on a bit of paper ?

[SS2.]

crikey said:

Driver X has 9 points on his license, 3 of which expire on August 1st. On July 31st he gets caught doing 40 in a 30.

If he were alowed to removed the 3 expired points on his license on 1st August then by the time he gets to court all they are aware of is 6 points, so he gets another 3 and is sent on his way despite the fact that at the time of the offense he actually had 9 points so another 3 would have put him on 12 and a possible ban.

Exactly..

crikey said:

It still seems wrong to me though, surely the DVLA know how many points anyone has at any given moment in time so why do the courts rely on what written on a bit of paper ?

A DVLA licence enquiry can be carried out directly from the Magistrates' Court these days. Its a guess, but perhaps when the 4 year rule was brought into force, this information was not so readily accessible.

[EU_Foreigner]

ah, I see what you mean now.