If you have been hit with penalty points on your licence you may wonder how long they'll stay there for.
Offences such as speeding, driving under the influence, using your mobile whilst driving and careless or dangerous driving can all land you with points, or endorsements, on your licence.
And the length of time they'll stay on your licence depends on the crime.
Those that are considered the most serious will remain 11 years from conviction.
For other offences, they'll stay for four years from either the date of conviction or the date of the offence.
Each endorsement has a special code and is given ‘penalty points’ on a scale from 1 to 11.
You can see the full scale for each offence and code here.
This is different however if you are a newly qualified driver.
If you have only passed your test less than two years before your offence, your licence will be revoked if you are given six points or more.
For provisional licence holders, the points will be carried over to your full one.
The length of time they'll stay still applies.
What does confuse the matter is the time they remain 'valid'. The points are only considered valid for the first three years for a four year endorsement and 10 years for an 11 year endorsement.
This means that once your points have lost their validity, they'll still stay on your licence for that additional year. They don't count towards the tally but they will still be visible and considered by a judge in a court of law.
If drivers rack up 12 penalty points within a period of three years, they can face being disqualified.
In a situation where you are banned from driving, the court will decide how long the disqualification will last and it is dependent upon how serious they deem the offence to be.
If you have 12 or more points on your licence within three years, your ban will last six months. If you get a second disqualification within three years it will be 12 months and this will go up to two year if you get a third ban within three years.
You can check if you have points on your licence by visiting www.gov.uk/penalty-points-endorsements
