Since November 2023, a computer bug has prevented hundreds of thousands of offenses from being penalized by a withdrawal of points. Like 600,000 drivers, you may have slipped through the cracks!
Like many motorists, you may have committed a traffic offense that earned you a fine and some valuable license points. Because since the establishment of the points license system in 1992, each traffic offense has resulted in a deduction ranging from one to six points, or even up to eight in the event of multiple simultaneous offenses. In the most serious cases, the loss of all twelve initial points can result in the suspension of the driving license, accompanied by the obligation to follow a road safety awareness course to try to recover some points.
But if you have been fined in recent months, it is entirely possible that you have received a fine with the indication “zero points removed”. Is it a miracle? Luck ? Nay, this is a computer bug that has affected the National Agency for Automated Offense Processing (ANTAI) since mid-November 2023. It prevented the processing of 600,000 files, and therefore the withdrawal of a large number of points. Concretely, when an offending motorist was indeed fined, if he chose not to pay immediately on the spot, he simply received a fine, while retaining the points on his driving license.
This very accommodating bug is linked to the update of the automated infraction system, as part of the end of point withdrawals for speeding below 5 km/h, following the entry into force of a new law. Obviously, the update did not go as planned since the bug prevented the points from being withdrawn for all recorded offenses.
Since April 15, 2024, a catch-up process has therefore been put in place with more than 10,000 files processed daily to correct the situation. Also, if you have escaped a point withdrawal following an offense committed since November 2023, do not rejoice too quickly. It is very likely that the administration will correct the bug, and that the sanction will be applied retroactively. You therefore risk not escaping it. We strongly advise you to carefully monitor your mail and postal boxes, or to regularly check your points balance via the official website My Allowed Pointsaccessible free of charge with a simple web browser, on computer or mobile, to see if you have been debited subsequently.