As an impaired driving lawyer, I get a lot of calls from people who have received traffic tickets and are concerned about losing their license. In particular, they’re concerned about how many points will trigger a license suspension.
Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast answer to this question.
Although there are thresholds on how many points will trigger a driving prohibition, there is more that goes into determining whether or not you’ll receive that prohibition than just the number of points you accumulate.
What determines a driving prohibition?
As a general rule, if you have a Class 5 license, you will probably not face a driving prohibition if you have less than 10 points. In the same way that if you have a Class 7 license, you will probably not face a prohibition if you have up to 3 points.
With that being said, there are other considerations that come into play. One of the considerations that the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles looks at is a pattern of behaviour. If you are consistently getting the same types of offences, even if you don’t accumulate the number of points necessary to prohibit you, you could lose your license.
There have been cases where people have lost their licenses because they would consistently get seatbelt tickets. There are no points for a seatbelt ticket, but it shows a pattern of disregard for the law.
When the Superintendent sees the pattern, they decide to intervene.
High-Risk offences more likely to trigger a prohibition
The other thing is you can also get a driving prohibition based on the category of the offences. Some offences are classified as high-risk, including an excessive speeding ticket, a distracted driving ticket, and driving without due care and attention. Although these tickets may not have a sufficient number of points to trigger a prohibition for points, they are still high-risk offences and can trigger a driving prohibition.
A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that only points can give the Superintendent the power to prohibit your license, but that’s not true.
The power comes from authority granted to the Superintendent of Motor Vehicle under Section 92 of the Motor Vehicle Act. It effectively allows them to prohibit your license for any reason.
If they believe that it is in the public interest, in the interest of public safety, or as a result of medical reasons or on the basis of your driving record, they can prohibit you.
There is almost no limit on what they can take into consideration when determining whether to give you a driving prohibition.
Rules are always changing
It is also important to remember that the rules can also change at any point.
It used to be the case that if you had your N license and you got a ticket and you filed to dispute, then went to court, but you had gotten your class 5 license in the meantime, if you pled guilty in court, it wouldn’t result in a driving prohibition.
However, that changed a couple of years ago, and now the Super Intendent will look at the point in time a person got the ticket and what your driver’s status was at that time.
Playing games with the system to try and get out of a driving prohibition is not likely to work.
Ways to avoid a prohibition
You don’t need a certain number of points to trigger a driving prohibition, but there are general rules you should consider. Try and avoid getting tickets altogether obviously, but really try and avoid getting tickets for the same kind of conduct.
If you get one speeding ticket and have a Class 5 license, you probably don’t need to worry about losing your license. But if you get a second speeding ticket, there is a danger it’s going to start looking like a pattern of conduct.
This is when you should seriously consider disputing those types of tickets.
If you’re a Class 7 driver, and you receive a single high-risk offence or if you receive any two tickets, you will lose your license for sure.
In order to put yourself in the best position to not get a driving prohibition for points or on the basis of an unsatisfactory driving record, you should consider disputing every ticket that you get.
I am always happy to talk to people about what their driving record is like and the likelihood in their particular circumstances of getting a driving prohibition based on receiving too many tickets.
It is a mistake for anybody to think that just adding up the number of points they’ve accumulated on their driving record is going to avoid a driving prohibition.
Points stay on your record
Another thing people are under the mistaken impression of is that points come off your driving record after a period of time. This is also not true.
Your points do not just come off your driving record. The Superintendent of Motor Vehicles has no limit on what they are allowed to consider.
They can, if they choose, go back 5 years and look at past points you accumulated when you get a new ticket. This is not common, but it’s not prohibited anywhere in the law.
You should not rely on the fact that you’ve had a period of clean driving, to give yourself a false sense of comfort that a serious ticket, or a ticket in general, might not affect you.
Generally speaking, they look at a 2-year window in determining the number of points you’ve accumulated and whether that should trigger a driving prohibition. And they look at 5 years for the patterns of conduct.
You should consult a lawyer if you are worried that the ticket you’ve received might put you into the danger zone of getting a driving prohibition.
