Drivers Licence Suspensions

It is often said that a driver's licence is a privilege and not a right. Regardless of how you categorize a drivers licence, if you’ve lost your licence and been suspended from driving, you’ll quickly realize how important it is for you to be able to drive and how much you’ve taken it for granted.

 

NSW driver's licences are regulated by the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), who are required by legislation to maintain a register of traffic demerit points, called the ‘Demit Points Scheme’. The scheme allocates penalty points for a range of driving offences.

 

Different offences have difference number of demerit points.  It is a common mistaken belief that drivers ‘lose’ points for certain traffic offences. However demerit points are accumulated not lost - a driver who has not committed any offences has zero points.  If you accumulate enough points in a given timeframe, your license will be suspended.

 

The number of demerit points resulting in a licence suspension varies for different licence types. Full license holders (unrestricted) may accumulate 12 demerit points, whilst Provisional P2 license holders may accumulate 7 demerit points and Provisional P1 licence holder may accumulate 4 demerit points.

 

Your license may also be suspended instantly for serious offences such as excessive speeding offences for driving more than 30 km/h over the speed limit.

 

If your license has been suspended you must not drive a motor vehicle during that period. The maximum penalty for first time offenders is $3,300 or imprisonment for 18 months or both, and in the casse of second or subsequent offences the maximum penalty is $5,500 penalty units or imprisonment for 2 years or both.

 

For unrestricted license holders and provisional license holders, the suspension is three months.  Unrestricted license holders (excluding P1 & P2) who receive a Notice of Suspension due to the accumulation of demerit points may apply for a ‘12 month good behaviour period’ instead of serving the suspension.  A downfall to this option which unrestricted license holders are generally unaware of is that if they accumulate 2 or more demerit points while serving a good behaviour period, they will then be suspended for double the original suspension time.

 

Provisional licence holders don’t have the option of a good behaviour licence. Once a provision licence holder accumulates the requisite number of demerit points, their licence is suspended. Though not all hope is lost. An application (also referred to as a licence appeal) can be made by a provisional licence holder, to the local court to overturn the RTA decision to suspend a licence for incurring demerit points. The common ground for a licence appeal is that a licence suspension will cause undue hardship on the applicant.

 

We have been successful in many licence appeals in arguing that a loss of licence would cause an applicant substantial hardship such as adversely affecting an ability to work, loss of employment, diminishing the ability to meet mortgage repayments and business commitments. The local court can and does reverse and reduce suspensions in appropriate circumstances.