The driver’s license for points was a great novelty at the time it was introduced in Spain, radically changing the way in which penalties were handled, including the loss of the same, after a driver committed one or more infractions of the Traffic regulations.
It was introduced in 2006, so it’s been around long enough for drivers to get used to what it means to keep and lose license points. Its use has shown that the vast majority of drivers have a safe and law- abiding behavior: more than 65% of Spanish drivers continue to keep all their fifteen points.
But, obviously, at any time, you can make a mistake or an oversight that entails the dreaded fine and the consequent loss of some point. It is that situation in which you ask yourself the main question: how to recover points from the driving license? And it is easy that you also have doubts about the question of taking a course or even knowing what points you have and how many you have left.
Now we tell you how to recover driving license points in a clear and simple way, so that this loss does not cause any special headache.
What do you need to recover points from your driving license?
- A driving license
- A car
Instructions to recover points from the driver’s license
- What is my balance? First of all, you should know that when you pass all the driving license exams and you can use your car to drive on the streets and highways, you have eight points on your license, given your status as a new driver. You will keep those 8 points for a period of two years. After this driving initiation period, another four will automatically be added to you, as long as you have not incurred in any situation that has caused you to be fined, and thus you will have a total of 12 points.
- Six years for 15. People who do not drive may not know is that the fifteen points of the driver’s license are not had from the first moment, at all. Moreover, it will take six years in possession of the card. As regulated by the Point-Based Driving Permit and License Law, 2 more points will be received, as a bonus, when the motorist has not committed any violation of the highway code and without loss of points during the three years after obtaining driver’s license and the corresponding 12 points. After those three years and already with those 14 points in hand, you have to be a driver without any penalty for another three years, and that’s when they give you the 15 point.
- What points do I have? With this slow progression of so many years, it is easy that at any moment of that six-year term you are not very clear about how many points you have. But if you want to find out, all you have to do is go to the website of the Directorate General of Traffic (DGT) and fill in a few boxes to check your balance of points.
- How to recover points? Of course, what you will be concerned about is recovering your full balance. For this you have two ways to achieve it. If you do not commit any infraction that includes loss of points, during the two years following the sanction that did subtract points from your license, then you will have the initial 12 points again.
- Driver re-education courses. The alternative is to participate in a road awareness and re-education course, with which the aim is to make the driver aware of both the negative consequences of not respecting traffic regulations -due to speeding, alcohol consumption and other drugs-, with the result of accidents, injuries and even loss of life. The course will consist of 12 hours in a driving school agreed with the Administration, not just any without authorization, and thus you can recover 6 points. This course can only be passed once every two years -professional drivers, every year-, so after doing so you lose more points you will not be able to recover them through the course until those 24 months have passed. And if in the two years after the course you do not lose any points, you will have 12 again. But if the offense had been very serious, with a loss of 6 points. Then you will have to wait 3 years to return to 12 points. Keep in mind that the course will cost you money, around two hundred euros.
- When you have lost all the points. If you lose all points, you lose your license, and if you drive without a license, you are committing a crime. To get your permit again and recover points, you are obliged to wait six months -three months for professional drivers- and, once that has elapsed, you will be able to access a road re-education course, which in this case will be 24 hours in total and will therefore be more expensive. But in this situation, in addition to the course, you must pass a theoretical test at your provincial Traffic Department. Then you will recover your driving license, with eight points, that is, a return to start as if you were new, although you do not have to go back to driving school.
Tips to recover points from the driver’s license
- The road awareness courses consist of several common topics and other more specific ones. The first deal with driver education, and the second adapt to the issues that most affect each driver in a personalized way.
- The highest loss of points, 6 at a time, is caused by driving having drunk alcohol excessively, or taking drugs, refusing to take a breathalyzer or drug test, driving the wrong way, participating in illegal races, using radar inhibitors and tachographs, and for exceeding driving times or not reaching the minimum rest periods in professionals.
