Demerit points

Ontario's demerit point system is a regulation, O. Reg. 339/94, and the quantity every threshold in it measures — “accumulated demerit points” — carries its own time window inside its own definition: points from offences committed within any period of 2 years. The clock therefore starts on the day of the offence, not on the date of conviction.

Which offence carries how many points is set out in that regulation's Table, across 56 items, keyed by the provision you were convicted under. Familiar rows: 3 points for failing to obey a stop sign or signal light, 3 for a hand-held device, 6 for careless driving, 6 for racing.

The Table's short descriptions are expressly for convenience only and do not limit what the provision in the first column actually covers. That first-column citation is the only reliable key, and this site never asserts an offence category from a description alone.

The set fine steps at 20 km/h and 30 km/h over, and stops existing at 50 km/h. The demerit Table steps at 16 km/h, 30 km/h and 50 km/h over. Those are different boundaries on the same speedometer, from two different instruments, and treating one as the other is the commonest mistake made about Ontario speeding.

From 16 km/h over the Table gives 3 points; from 30 km/h over, 4; from 50 km/h over, 6.

Below that floor — anything up to 15 km/h over — the Table has no row at all. On the only reading the text supports, a set fine applies and ZERO demerit points are recorded. It is also the commonest speeding case there is, which is why this page states it outright rather than leaving a reader to infer it from a table that simply starts higher up.

A fully licensed driver receives a letter at 6 points, can be called to an interview from 9, and faces a mandatory suspension at 15. A novice driver's ladder runs 2, 6 and 9 — lower at every rung.

A first mandatory suspension is 30 days for a fully licensed driver and 60 days for a novice. A subsequent one is 6 months, and both ladders sit under an outer limit of 2 years.

A conviction goes on your driving record, and any demerit points attach to it under the regulation described above. That much comes from the instruments this site reads, and it is the part this site states.

What an insurer does with it does not. Insurance pricing in Ontario is not governed by the Highway Traffic Act or by O. Reg. 339/94; none of the documents read for this site price it, set a lookback for it, or state that any particular conviction changes a premium. Anyone quoting you an exact percentage is working from something other than these instruments — often their own underwriting experience, which may be perfectly good information, but is not law and is not what this site is for.

Keep the two questions separate and they both get easier: the points question is answered by the regulation, and the premium question is answered by whoever writes your policy.

In Ontario the 2-year window sits inside the definition of the quantity itself, and points are recorded as of the date of the offence. On the only reading the text supports, each entry drops out of the count 2 years after the day that offence was committed — a rolling window, per offence, rather than a single date on which a record is wiped clean. No separate expiry provision exists in the regulation to say otherwise.

Québec runs a different clock from a different event: points there become nil 2 years from the judgment of conviction. For the same conduct on the same day, the two provinces start counting at different moments — which is why this site never writes one “points last N years” line covering both.

The Québec speeding fine formula starts at 1 km/h over. The Québec speeding points table starts at 11 km/h over, at 1 point. Those are two instruments — a statute and a regulation — and they do not share their first boundary. From 1 km/h to 10 km/h over there is an amende and there are no points.

Say it in that order, because the natural assumption runs the other way: people expect the two tables to be two columns of one thing. They are not, and the divergence continues at the top, where the points side splits the highest excesses across 4 separate tables that the fine formula does not mirror.

The thresholds that reach a licence are age-banded. A notice is triggered at 4, 6 or 7 points depending on the driver's age band, and revocation at 8, 12 or 15 on the same banding — with a separate flat threshold of 4 points for learner and probationary holders that is not age-banded at all.

This one is open, and it stays open here. The Highway Traffic Act's camera provision limits what a camera conviction can carry — it rules out imprisonment, and rules out a suspension for default of payment — and it says nothing at all about demerit points.

The mechanism that would settle the question, including whether the conviction is registered against the driver or against the vehicle's owner, is not in the instruments read for this site. So both readings stay on the table: asserting that camera tickets never carry points would go past the text, and asserting that they do would go further.

A structural note while you are in the tables: the row covering stop signs and signal lights covers eleven separate provisions in one citation cell — several subsections of one section, a stop-sign requirement, municipal by-laws and a federal regulation among them. Where the catalogue prints that row it prints the whole citation string, rather than compressing it into one clean-looking section number.