Many clients ask us if getting rid of their N license will stop tickets or points they received with it from carrying over to their class 5 licence. They’re concerned that if they get points while they have their N but get a class 5 licence, they may still lose it.
Other clients feel that getting their class 5 licence, after receiving a ticket but before it’s dealt with in court, may exempt them from the potential of a driving prohibition.
The answer to these questions is complicated.
Anytime you receive points in BC they go on your driving record. Your driving record is a record of tickets and points and other things that you have received related to your driving, regardless of your class of licence.
Tickets you received when you had your L, tickets that you received in 1975, and tickets that you received two weeks ago, are all on the same driving record.
The only way to have a ticket removed from your driving record, or to have points removed, is to successfully dispute the ticket. The problem for class 7 drivers is that the typical threshold for receiving a driving prohibition is a lot lower than the typical one if you are a class 5 driver.
Does changing my license help?
So, does changing your licence status protect you from getting a driving prohibition? The answer may surprise you, because it is in fact, no.
When you get an entry added to your record, there are two dates that appear, the first is the offence date and the second date is the conviction date when you were found guilty of the charge. The conviction date may be the same day as the offence if you paid the ticket right away, it may be a month later if you don’t dispute the ticket, and it is deemed not disputed, or the conviction date may be a year later if you dispute the ticket in court and are found guilty afterwards.
In the intervening time, while you may have changed your license status, ICBC still knows what date you got the offence and your licence status, and that’s the date they consider for the purposes of determining whether to issue a driving prohibition.
For people who have had other tickets added to their record in the intervening time, and think that they can get points from an earlier incident but not have those negatively affect them, there’s bad news for you too. ICBC will also consider the total accumulation of points, regardless of when you received them.
Effectively, the rule of thumb is whatever the worst outcome is for you, that is likely the route ICBC is going to take.
There is one silver lining here, and that’s, that if you receive a ticket when you have your N, but you’re not found guilty of it until after you get your class 5, you cannot be forced back to have your N license again.
Once you have your class 5 licence, you continue to maintain a class 5 driving status as long as you don’t serve a driving prohibition in BC that’s longer than two years in duration.
These examples of how strict ICBC is with tickets and points are a good indication of why it’s important to always dispute a ticket, and why it’s important to have legal advice and assistance in understanding the consequences which they may affect you and your license.
