So, it’s happened. You got a letter in the mail telling you that you are going to be losing your licence as a result of getting too many points. You received a Notice of Intent to Prohibit your licence. You probably have a lot of questions; Can you keep your licence? Can you still drive? Can you dispute it?
The answer to these questions is likely yes.
The first thing you should know is that you can keep your licence for at least the 21 days indicated on the Notice of Intent letter. The length of time that you have to dispute it permits you to drive while the process is in dispute. Provided you send in a submission within that 21-day period, you can keep
your licence while the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles and ICBC are considering your submission.
Currently, the turnaround time for a response to the letter is approximately nine weeks. At the very least, you can probably keep your licence for these
nine weeks. In most cases, once a submission is sent in, the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles and ICBC will consider your circumstances and either revoke or reduce the prohibition.
If you do not write in within the 21-day time period, then you will not be able to keep your licence. The process that follows a missed 21-day period is
straightforward. You may receive another letter in the mail telling you that you are now prohibited from driving, or you may be pulled over by a police
officer and served a driving prohibition.
The police officer will take away your licence after serving you the driving prohibition, and you will have to find an alternative way to get home. This is why it is important to dispute a Notice of Intent to Prohibit as soon as you receive it. This is also why it matters that you get legal advice before sending in a submission. Once you have sent in your material, that is what they will consider. Supplemental submissions are generally not permitted, which means you only get one chance to try to keep your licence in response to the Notice of Intent to Prohibit.
Our office deals with hundreds of Notice of Intent to Prohibit cases each year, often with a great deal of success.
We have developed a method, which we believe is most effective at persuading an adjudicator at ICBC or the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles to
allow you to keep your licence. There are certain factors that we have found are less helpful in your defence and certain factors that we have found are
more effective at persuading the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles and ICBC to revoke the prohibition.
One of the risks of writing your own letter without the benefit of legal advice or without having a lawyer do it for you is that you may say or do something
in the letter that actually damages your chances of keeping your licence after receiving a Notice of Intent to Prohibit.
This is why it is always important to obtain legal advice if you want to keep your licence after receiving a Notice of Intent to Prohibit.