Unsafe Driving Practices

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The demerit points system is one of the many bureaucratic mechanisms that manage to keep all of us drivers a little bit more cautious and everyone else a little bit safer. It pays to know exactly how many points you’ll get for each offence, and although each region is slightly different here is a list of unsafe driving practices that can end up adding, or removing, demerit points from your driving record.

Here they are listed from least to most dangerous:

Failing to stop at a pedestrian crossing
Failing to wear a seatbelt
Failing to obey traffic signs or signals
Failing to signal
Driving on a closed road
Failing to obey a police officer’s signals
Failing to move into another lane when passing a stopped emergency vehicle
Improper passing
Failing to yield the right-of-way
Speeding (16 – 29 km/h, 30 – 49 km/h, 50 km/h or more)
Following too closely
Careless driving
Racing
Failing to stop for a school bus
Failing to stop when requested by a police officer
Failing to remain at the scene of a collision

This list is by no means exhaustive but it should give you a good idea of what constitutes safe driving. Remember, this system wasn’t designed to make life harder for drivers; it was created to keep pedestrians and vehicle owners alike much safer.

When I called to “haggle” the insurance companies, it turned out that my driving record was clean. It hadn’t always been that way, but I knew that the 2 demerit points I got for speeding back in high school had long since been cleared off my record. The longest span of time that convictions, and their associated demerit points, will stay on your license is two years.

Since the day that I was caught speeding – it happened to be in a school zone – I have always been very conscious of how fast I’m driving. The penalty was hefty, at least $300, and my record had the two demerit points on it for a couple of years. It made insurance much more expensive but effectively made me drive slower and safer.

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I won’t say that I never speed now – that would be lying – but I am much more cautious as a result of my run-in with the police. Also, it forced me to learn exactly what was considered unsafe driving – I did not want to have to pay anything more to the insurance companies than I already had to. For a male under 25, those premiums are already pretty expensive. On top of all that, I ended up telling my friends how much the existence of demerit points on your license can hurt your wallet.

Obviously I wasn’t jumping for joy when it happened, but if you take a step back you can see how some simple bits of paperwork, a few regulations and a traffic cop who was good at his job can make things a bit safer for everyone. Knowing what’s considered unsafe can also save you money in the long run when it comes to bugging the insurance companies for a better rate.