The DGT Updates Courses for Recovering Driving License Points

The Official State Gazette has published the new Ministerial Order regulating awareness and re-education courses for holders of a driving license or permit. According to the DGT, these courses have proven to be "an essential tool for modifying incorrect behaviors on the road and raising awareness about the serious consequences of traffic accidents."

The most significant updates to the new courses will come into effect on November 4th and include aspects such as increasing the time allocated to group dynamics. This change is based on the belief that students internalize messages better this way, and it allows psychologists to observe how well students are accepting them.

According to Montserrat Pérez, Deputy Director of Training at the DGT, "The update of the content and structure of these courses aims to modify the attitudes and behaviors of offending drivers, re-educate them in respecting essential values in road safety, make them aware of the consequences of their actions, and adapt the courses to new technologies."

New offender profiles are created: distractions, reckless behaviors in motorcyclists, speed, alcohol and other drugs, reckless and criminal behaviors. These profiles are assigned to students based on the infractions committed and for which they have lost points for the specific part of the course. This measure is justified because "for years, distractions have been the leading concurrent factor in fatal accidents, and motorcyclists are one of the groups whose accident rates have increased the most in recent years."

The new courses will include mandatory participation from victims "since almost twenty years of experience has shown their effectiveness in changing attitudes," as well as the application of new technologies in the specific part of the courses. This includes the possibility that this part's content can be conducted online through teletraining or virtual classrooms.

The DGT reminds that both drivers who have lost their points balance and those who have been sentenced by a final court ruling to deprivation of driving rights are required to complete and pass this course successfully.

Additionally, drivers must pass an exam to regain administrative authorization if they have lost all their assigned points or have been sentenced by a final court ruling to more than two years of deprivation of driving rights for motor vehicles and mopeds.

The Traffic and Road Safety Law establishes two types of courses: partial points recovery courses and driving license recovery courses.

The changes established in the new Order for partial points recovery courses are as follows:

Completing and passing the course will allow drivers to recover 4 points, but under no circumstances can they recover more points than they had lost.

The partial points recovery course can only be taken once every two years, except for professional drivers who can take it once a year.

As of today, there are already more than 900 centers within the DGT's scope that offer awareness and re-education courses. The Supreme Court's ruling changing from a concession system to an authorization system has allowed many more centers to provide this training.

In autonomous communities with transferred competencies in traffic and motor vehicle circulation matters, they will be responsible within their territorial scope for determining how to conduct awareness and re-education courses according to the duration, content, and requirements set out in today's approved Order.