Driving penalties

The two tracks

The first track is money. An infringement notice is issued by an enforcement body — Police for most traffic offences, councils for parking and some local matters — and asks for a set fee. It is not a conviction and it is not decided by a court unless you ask for it to be.

The second track is your licence. Many, though not all, traffic offences carry demerit points, which are recorded by NZTA against your driver licence record. Points accumulate, and once enough active points sit on the record within the relevant period, a suspension follows. That suspension is administered by NZTA, not by the agency that issued the notice and not by a court.

The consequence of that split is the thing people get wrong most often: paying the fine does not deal with the points, and there is nothing to negotiate on that front at a counter. Two separate mechanisms, one incident.

When an offence leaves the infringement system

Some offences are never infringements. Others start as one and cross a line into being a criminal charge, and drink and drug driving is the clearest example of that structure.

Below a certain reading, an alcohol offence is dealt with as an infringement with a fee and demerit points. Above it, it becomes a charge, heard in court, with the possibility of disqualification, and the penalties escalate with the level of the reading and with previous offending. The limits themselves differ by the driver's age, and there is a distinct regime for drugs, including roadside testing and offences relating to impairment rather than to a reading alone.

Those are the shapes. The actual numbers — every limit, every band, every consequence — are published by NZTA and that is where to read them.

• Alcohol and drug limits — NZTA
• Driver licences — NZTA
• New Zealand Police

Court-imposed disqualification is not the same thing as a demerit suspension, even though both end with you not driving. They come from different authorities, have different lengths, and getting your licence back afterwards involves different steps. An alcohol interlock requirement and a zero alcohol licence are further conditions a court can attach, and they change what your licence permits after you are back on the road.

Speed, and why it is not one rule

Speeding is where the two tracks are most visible. It is enforced both by officers at the roadside and by cameras, the penalty scales with how far over the limit the speed was, and at the upper end it stops being an infringement altogether. Temporary limits at roadworks and variable limits around schools carry the same enforcement as any other posted limit, which surprises people.

Camera-detected offences also arrive differently. The notice goes to the vehicle's registered person, because nobody was stopped and no driver was identified. That is why a notice can land with someone who was not driving, and why there is a formal process for saying so rather than simply replying that it was not you.

Checking what is actually on your record

Assume nothing here. People carry a belief about their demerit position that is out of date in both directions — some worry about points that dropped off a year ago, others do not know they are close to a suspension.

The record sits with NZTA. Checking your driver licence explains what you can see about your own licence and demerit position and who to ask, and the driver licence section covers the licence itself: stages, renewals, conditions and what a suspension means for each. Licence transactions are handled in person by appointed agents rather than at NZTA offices, and driver licensing agents explains how that network works.

If you disagree with a notice

There is a formal route and it has a deadline printed on the notice. There is also an informal one, which is asking the issuing agency to withdraw the notice, and it carries no risk at all. The formal route does carry risk, because an unsuccessful court challenge can end up costing more than the original fee.

Disputing an infringement notice sets both out, including the distinction between having a reason and having a defence, which is what most failed challenges come down to.

What this section will cover

This hub is the entry point to a set of pages that go deeper: demerit points and how accumulation actually works, speeding penalties, the alcohol and drug regime, and how to check what fines are outstanding against you. Until each of those exists, the official pages above hold the current figures, and they are the ones to trust over any number you read in a forum thread.