How To Reinstate A Suspended Licence In Ontario

Reasons for License Suspension

There are several common reasons for license suspension in Ontario:

1. Unpaid Fines: This is a frequent cause of license suspension. Paying overdue fines is necessary to reinstate your license.
2. Medical Reasons: A medical condition or procedure might result in a medical suspension. Consult your family doctor to address medical requirements.
3. Court-Imposed Suspension: A judge may order a suspension due to certain offences or convictions.
4. Demerit Points: Accumulating too many demerit points can lead to a suspension. For graduated license holders, fewer points are needed to trigger a suspension.
5. Child or Spousal Support Arrears: Delinquency in paying child or spousal support can result in suspension. 

 

Reinstating A Suspended license

Once you know the reason for your suspension, you can take the following steps:

Unpaid Fines

• Pay the Fines: Clear all outstanding fines. 
• Reinstatement Fee: After paying the fines, you must also pay a reinstatement fee to restore your driving privileges.

Medical Suspension

• Consult Your Doctor: Visit your family doctor to understand the medical requirements for reinstatement.
• Submit Medical Documentation: Provide necessary medical documentation to the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO).
• Reinstatement Fee: Once cleared medically, pay the reinstatement fee.

Court-Imposed Suspension

• Complete Court-Ordered Programs: Fulfil any court-ordered programs or penalties.
• Pay Any Fines: Ensure all court-related fines are paid.
• Reinstatement Fee: Pay the reinstatement fee after meeting legal requirements.

Demerit Points

• Improvement Programs: Enrol in driver improvement programs or attend a driver improvement interview if required.
• Wait Out Suspension Period: Serve the suspension period imposed by the MTO.
• Reinstatement Fee: Pay the reinstatement fee after completing the suspension period.

Child or Spousal Support

• Clear Arrears: Pay all overdue child or spousal support.
• Coordinate with the Family Responsibility Office: Work with the office to confirm payments.
• Reinstatement Fee: After clearing arrears, pay the reinstatement fee.

 

Service Ontario and Drive Test Centres

For many of the steps involved in reinstating your license, you may need to visit a Service Ontario Center or a Drive Test centre. Ensure you bring all necessary identification:

• Driver’s license
• Proof of Address
• Medical Documentation (if applicable)

 

Additional Considerations

• DUI or Alcohol-Related Suspensions: These usually require completing a remedial measures program and installing an interlocking device to provide a breath sample before driving.
• Graduated Licensing Rules: New drivers must adhere to specific regulations and may face stricter penalties for infractions.
• Re-Examination: In some cases, you might be required to undergo a written test, road test, or eye test.

 

Resource Links

• Ontario Government Driver license Check
• Service Ontario Centres
• Family Responsibility Office

Make sure to bring necessary identification and documents when visiting these centers.

 

Video Transcription:

Members of the public often ponder this question. How to reinstate a suspended license in Ontario? One of the first things that has to be determined is the accuracy of that assumption. Is the driver’s license suspended? One of the first remedies that a person can take is to search the government website using your driver’s license.

You can do a very specific search to find whether or not it is suspended. If you find that your driver’s license is suspended, or for whatever reason that website is not working for you, the alternative would be to attend directly any Service Ontario location with your driver’s license in hand with that same question.

Once we’ve determined, in fact, that the license is suspended, there’s really, why did that happen? What’s the cause of this? There are things that we’d need to look at and consider. One of the and probably the most common reasons for a suspension of your driver’s license would be an unpaid fine. It is a common thing to have happen in a modern society when we’re all busy doing many things, it’s something that frankly just happens.

It doesn’t make, it’s not an excuse, it just happens and unfortunately, if it’s gone unchecked or you’ve forgotten about it too long, you will be stopped by the police and then there’s a new charge called driving while licence is suspended. But getting back to the main topic, which is the reasons for a suspended licence the next possibility would be a medical suspension.

So there could be some medical procedure that has happened, there could be some medical event that has put you in a position where your driver’s license is suspended and unfortunately you’re not able to drive. If you are unfortunate and you’ve gone to court and a judge has decided that you are facing a mandatory driver’s license suspension of a number of months or a year, that’s another mechanism.

So we’ve got unpaid fines, medical reasons, potentially court imposed suspensions. There’s also the MTO suspensions, which is, you know, on, on a general license or a G license you could be in a position where if you accrued so many points that you get a natural suspension, all right? Or you could be on a graduated license where it takes very few points and you end up having your license suspended.

And then the final way that I can think of would be for child support reasons. If you are delinquent in paying your child support on time, or if you are in arrears the Ontario government will suspend your driver’s license. So those are the reasons for the suspension. So we want to determine. A, if you’re suspended, then you want to know exactly why you’re suspended.

Now when you know those things, now you can look towards the remedy. What am I going to do about it? How am I going to deal with this? The obvious is the next step. If your fines are late, unpaid, well, you need to pay those. That could be 100, that could be thousands of dollars, but in order to get your license reinstated, those need to be paid.

Now, once you go to pay those fines, you’ll find that there’s a new thing called a reinstatement fee. So there’s an additional charge to reinstate a suspended driver’s license. So that too, also has to be addressed at that time in order for you to get your driving privileges reinstated. The next step on a medical suspension is obviously, if you’ve determined, you’ve gone this far, you’ve determined, well, I have a medical suspension, I’m not sure what I do here, well, the next step is to talk to the doctor, who you may or may not know how that happened, but if you don’t know, probably you go to your family doctor and, and start asking some questions about that.

Or if you’re lucky enough, you know why this was a medical event or, or some sort of procedure, which may hopefully naturally expire. In any event, you need to look into that medically and find out why, what, what that’s actually doing. Okay, and, and usually there’s a time period, it’s usually months to be frank, that you’re going to be waiting for our medical system to get caught up to, to be in a position to say, okay we find this guy is or gal is, is is able to drive further at this point in time, and now you’re in a position to pay a reinstatement fee on that particular license and now you can continue to drive.

The final area is for child support. If in fact you got behind on your child support, well it’s trite to say but you’re going to have to get caught up on those payments. Get yourself out of arrears. Once that happens you’re in a position where you can go pay the reinstatement fee and then you can get your driving license and your driving suspension removed so that you can continue to drive.

There are lots of answers and lots of things to consider in this particular area. If you need help, if you’re not sure you’re gonna know what to do at the end of this video. One is get to that Ontario site and you can look up your driver’s license immediately. Find out its status, should give you the cause at that point in time. If you’re still unsure and you need help we’re certainly here at all times to assist you with that.