Driving is so much part of daily life that losing your licence can be difficult. If you accumulate 13 demerit points on a full licence, you will lose it. We asked two people what it’s like to live with lots of demerit points or without a licence.
Olivia – psychologist
Olivia has just lost her drivers licence for the second time. She already accrued 13 demerit points and lost her licence for 3 months in 2019. When she got it back, she tried very hard not to get anymore demerit points.
Losing her licence had a big impact on her life:
‘I made choices about what job to do … and the difficulty of travelling to work outside my suburb. Then as I started to accrue more, I had to consider that when looking at changing jobs. I also had trouble doing my food shopping while my licence was suspended. I had to ask a friend to help me with this as I couldn’t always carry it home or take the shopping on a bike.’
One of the worst aspects of accruing demerit points was paying the fines that go with the offences:
‘If I were to estimate the financial cost, just over the past 6 years, of accruing demerit points and losing my licence, I would say I’ve spent at least $2,000-$3,000 on fines and this is not including any costs associated with other modes of transport.’
When asked whether demerit points and losing her licence has been motivating, she gave a mixed response:
‘The demerit point system certainly motivates me to constantly check my speed and the school zone signs. Sadly, no matter how motivating it is, considering how often I drive in that school zone, it’s understandable I’ll be 7km over the limit 5 times in 3 years. The system needs to be more personalised and oriented towards serious offences.’
Unfortunately, Olivia has lost her licence again and experiencing all the same inconveniences. But this time it’s worse – because she has lost her licence more than once in 5 years, she has to resit the Driver Knowledge Test and pay for a Traffic Offender Intervention Program.
Is it really worth it?
Rodney – Journalist
Like Oliva, Rodney has lost his drivers licence before. In 2021, he lost his licence for 3 months. Fortunately for him this was during the COVID lockdowns and he had no real need to drive anywhere.
Since that time, he’s accrued 12 demerit points again. It will take only one more offence before he loses his licence or chooses a 12-month good behaviour period. How does he manage this prospect?
‘I am very, very careful. While I haven’t made any changes to my lifestyle, I keep fully within the speed limits all the time. Adaptive cruise control is keeping me alive! To keep within the law I rely heavily on adaptive cruise control, even around the city. I set the car to the speed limit and let the car do the driving.’
‘I get one demerit point back in July. July! Ironically, I will have been a compliant driver for longer than 12 months. After circa 18 months of full compliance, I get only one point back.’
There is always a financial cost to demerit points or losing your licence:
‘Mainly it’s the cost of fines. I can’t say how much as I have not added it up. It’s probably around $2K all up. I haven’t checked to see if the cost of my greenslip went up.’
The chances are the cost of his green slip did go up – for 3 years.
When asked if having lots of demerit points is motivating for him, he said:
‘I’m a good boy now, I am.’
It looks like Rodney might not lose his drivers licence a second time.
How do demerit points work?
Remember, you don’t actually lose demerit points. You accumulate points on your licence up to a certain limit within a 3-year period. This period is measured from the first to the latest offence. The points limit for losing your licence depends on licence type:
- Unrestricted licence – 13 points
- Professional driver – 14 points
- P2 licence – 7 points
- P1 licence – 4 points
- L licence – 4 points.
Green slip prices with demerit points
When you get a greenslips.com.au Calculator quote, insurers ask for the number of demerit points on your NSW licence. There can be a big difference in price for a driver with demerits compared to a driver without demerits. Some vehicle owners save a full $300 on their CTP greenslip premiums with zero demerit points on their licence.
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