One of the common questions that we are asked is how many points a person can have on their provisional licence before they pass their driving test.

This can be a difficult area of motoring law to understand and it is not as straightforward as people may imagine.  Penalty points for provisional drivers is a confusing area of law, best left to the experts such as motoring specialists Forrest Williams, to examine and explain.

As a new driver, within the first two years of passing your test, your licence will be revoked if you accumulate 6 or more penalty points.  This revocation means that you will revert to being a learner driver, and you will have to resit your driving test.

However, as a provisional driver, you may accumulate more than 6 points and still obtain a full driving licence whilst these are on your licence.

If you pass your driving test with 3 or more points on your licence already, any further points within the active penalty point period of 3 years from dates of offence will cause your licence to be revoked.  This means that you could be given 6 penalty points as a learner driver, pass your driving test, and continue to drive despite having these points active on your licence.

Any further points within the active time period will cause your licence to be revoked.

It is also worth noting that it is possible to be disqualified from driving before you have passed your driving test.  If a provisional driver has 12 points or more endorsed on their licence within the active time period, the usual totting up provisions will apply and a 6 month disqualification will be issued.

The answer, then, to the question of how many penalty points a provisional driver may obtain before passing their test, is a maximum of 11 penalty points.  Anything higher than this will lead to a totting up disqualification as soon as the threshold of 12 points is reached or exceeded.

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