A new driver’s licence system comes into effect on June 1st with all drivers starting off with 12 point in credit.
Points will be deducted for serious driving offences - two points, and very serious offences - four points.
The new scheme apply only to holders of Portuguese licences held by nationals and foreigners.
If a driver get down to just four points in credit, an obligatory road safety course will be necessary and has to be booked within ten days, but if the points drop to just two, drivers will have to retake their driving test.
If the total number of points drops to zero, the driver will have his or her license suspended for two years.
There is a six point limit for offences committed on the same day, but this limit does not apply to drink drivers who will have the proverbial book thrown at them with no maximum daily limit applying.
The bonus part of the scheme gives drivers with three years of trouble free motoring a credit of three points, only to a maximum ceiling of 15 points.
Offences committed before the points scheme starts will be processed under the old rules.
To tighten up on vehicles exceeding the speed limits on Portugal’s roads, Secretary of State for Internal Affairs Jorge Gomes announced today that radar speed traps will be fully functional “in the first quarter of next year.” He also admitted that there will only be 50 radar speed trap systems in the entire country with the first of 30 new ones being installed as from this September.
As for the current row over a ten month gap in processing road traffic fines in a system that anyway ‘lets off’ drivers from paying around 200,000 fines per year, Gomes commented, “We are going to make some alterations to reduce the processing.”
In fact the road safety authority ANSR has a backlog of over a million fines to process due partly to the ten month hiatus to April this year caused by a change of external processing contractor and the need for the Court of Auditors to rubber stamp the new contract.
As for the new points system, a study by Direct Insurance revealed that 72% of respondents were aware of the new points based system that starts on June 1st but were not able to state the main details.
Drivers can check up on their points by going to
