Under Section 35 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 if you accumulate 12 points on your licence within a 3 year period you are disqualified from driving. This is known as “totting up”.
This date starts from the date of the first offence not when you were convicted.
If you have not been previously disqualified, you face a 6 month disqualification.
If you have been disqualified previously, this is increased to one year or two years depending on your previous convictions.
To avoid such a ban you can either defend the allegation which takes you to the 12 point total, argue special reasons for the court to not give you points in relation to that offence or make an exceptional hardship argument
What is an exceptional hardship argument?
This is where the accused attempts to convince the court to not impose disqualification on the basis of their personal circumstances.
The burden of proving this exceptional hardship falls on the accused and it must be proven on the balance of probabilities, i.e. more likely than not.
You can only use the same exceptional hardship grounds once in three years. This is not a shortcut to avoid a ban everytime. You will need to give evidence under oath as well as provide any documentary evidence.