POINTS LOTTERY? LTDA’s General Secretary warns inconsistent court rulings are putting taxi drivers’ licences at risk
- Perry Richardson
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Taxi drivers are increasingly being exposed to a “lottery” in the justice system where similar motoring offences can attract dramatically different penalties depending on which court hears the case, according to Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association (LTDA) General Secretary Steve McNamara.
Writing in the latest edition of TAXI, the LTDA’s magazine, McNamara argues that while Transport for London (TfL) successfully abandoned its former policy of automatically reviewing drivers who accumulated three penalty points, the issue has shifted towards courts handing out six-point endorsements for relatively minor offences.
Those six points can trigger a TfL licensing review, potentially placing a driver’s livelihood at risk.
McNamara said: “Even though we were successful in getting Transport for London (TfL) to change their policy on their ‘three points and out’ diktat a few years back, their ‘six point and out’ policy is still very much alive and causing major problems.”
He explained that under the previous system, even relatively minor offences carrying three penalty points could result in taxi drivers facing licence suspension proceedings. Although that policy was changed following pressure from the LTDA, drivers receiving a single six-point endorsement can now find themselves in a similar position.
“The current ruling is the same for six points,” McNamara wrote. “A single six-point offence (not two three pointers) will get your cab licence reviewed by TfL. This could necessitate you attending a reconsideration hearing at Palestra, and could, and often does, result in a suspension or even a revocation.”
According to McNamara, the biggest concern is the apparent lack of consistency in sentencing. He said six-point penalties for a single offence were once rare but are now becoming increasingly common.
“We used to get very few of these. Six points for a single offence was always considered quite rare, but just recently we are seeing increasingly strange decisions by courts,” he said. “There’s little uniformity as some look at individual offences, take into consideration previous driving records and issue reasonable and proportionate fines and points.”
However, he believes other courts are taking a far tougher approach regardless of the circumstances. McNamara claimed drivers responding to Single Justice Procedure Notices increasingly feel they are “entering a lottery”, with penalties varying depending on where their case is heard.
He pointed to the central processing system used for Single Justice Procedure Notices (SJPNs), where cases are allocated to courts after being processed centrally, arguing that this creates unpredictable outcomes.
“We can tell the member that, depending on what court it goes to, the fine (and possibly the points) will vary,” he wrote. “There are two or three courts known as ‘hanging courts’ and I am convinced were capital punishment reintroduced these ones would have very busy gallows for everyone convicted of a motoring offence.”
As an example, McNamara highlighted a member who was caught driving at 33mph in what had recently become a 20mph limit after previously being a 30mph road. He said one court imposed six penalty points and a fine “just short of the national debt”, with the LTDA now appealing the sentence.
He added that another member in similar circumstances received ten penalty points, despite the case falling outside normal sentencing expectations. “This is way outside the guidelines and equates to total madness. Again, we are appealing it,” McNamara said.
The consequences extend far beyond financial penalties. For licensed taxi drivers, accumulating six points can trigger questions over whether they remain a fit and proper person to hold a licence, regardless of whether the offence itself would ordinarily justify losing the ability to work.
“If we are not successful in getting the number of points reduced on appeal we will then have to start preparing for a battle with TfL to keep our members licensed, working and earning,” McNamara said. “Because make no mistake, if you get a single six-point offence then TfL will take action and revoke or suspend your licence.”
He also criticised what he sees as a growing disconnect between public perception and actual sentencing. Referring to television police programmes, McNamara argued viewers often expect dangerous driving incidents to result in severe punishment, only to discover offenders sometimes receive comparatively modest penalties. Meanwhile, he suggested lower-level offences can attract disproportionately harsh sanctions.
“Drive at 24mph, mess up the paperwork with the fixed penalty, and a crazy court will fine you £300, plus £100 costs and a victim surcharge, with the total approaching £500. It’s not only unfair and disproportionate, it’s utter madness,” he wrote.
McNamara ended by calling for greater consistency across the courts, arguing that the current approach undermines confidence in the justice system for professional drivers.
“It’s clear that laws are enforced differently depending on who enforces them and who they are targeting,” he said, adding that the LTDA would continue challenging decisions it believes are unfair through the appeals process.
