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That’s a tricky question. New York driver license points “expire” after four years, but they stay on your record forever. That works through the use of active and inactive (or passive) points. On the bright side, insurance investigators can only see the active points. On the dark side, four years is a long time to suffer increased insurance premiums after getting a ticket.
In order to know whether you should fight your traffic ticket, you’ll need to know the difference between active and inactive points. It’s also important to take a look at your local conditions and see if there’s a point system at work in the first place. But even if there isn’t your license might still be in hot water.
Active Points
Active points are those points currently on your driver license. Many common traffic tickets in NY add points to your driver license. With police officers issuing roughly a million tickets each year, that’s a lot of points to go around.
How long they remain active is up to the state. Local jurisdictions have little to no say in that, since the rules tend to be set by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and/or state legislature. The DMV is a federal agency and the state legislature controls the whole state.
States are allowed to set the point penalties for however long the politicians believe reasonable and prudent. That varies from place to place. In New York, it’s four years. In Georgia, it’s two years. In Florida, it’s three years. And so on and so forth for the rest of the country. Each state is different.
While these points are active on your record, insurance companies are allowed to view them. If an insurance investigator decides to take a look at your record, you just might find yourself on the receiving end of an audit. Those audits are the prime culprits in increasing insurance rates.
On the bright side, once that time period is up, your points will become inactive. As long as you don’t get a new ticket, you might be able to reduce your rates.
Inactive Points
Once a point expires, it becomes inactive. That does not mean that the DMV will remove those points from your record. In fact, points in most states will stay on your record for the rest of your life. That’s one of the main reasons why you should almost always fight your tickets. To prevent these points from hitting your license is to prevent a lifetime of potential DMV complications.
Inactive driver license points usually don’t lead to increased insurance premiums. That’s because most states don’t allow insurance investigators to see that far back into your driving history. For example, New York only allows them to view your driving abstract, which only covers the last four years.
Places like Georgia never forget and rarely forgive. If you get a second speeding ticket in your lifetime, even after decades of safe driving, you can face steep additional penalties. If your ticket includes a DUI charge, the penalties for a second conviction are even more severe.
States with Point Systems
Not every state has a point system. To save you some time scrolling the thousands of pages of Google results, we’ve gone ahead and done the research for you. Here’s a complete list of states with driver license point systems:
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kentucky
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington D.C.
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
You’ll notice that a few states aren’t on this list. That’s because they use different kinds of systems, usually based on the number of violations rather than what those violations entail. Here’s that list:
- Hawaii
- Kansas
- Louisiana
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Washington
- Wyoming
What Driver License Points Mean for You
Not every violation comes with points and some states don’t have a point system at all. But even no-point tickets can mess with your license. The normal cost of a traffic ticket is high enough. Add on the insurance increases, surcharges, and other penalties and you’re in for a wild ride of lost money.
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