Keeping Your Licence

In Ontario, the driver's licence is issued as a single card that displays both your photo and your signature. Every Ontario driver is expected to hold this single-card style of licence.

Always keep your licence on you any time you get behind the wheel.

• A renewal application form arrives in the mail
• Bring that form to any ServiceOntario Centre -- every location can take your photo
• Staff will have you sign the form, present identification, pay a fee, and pose for a new photo
• Provided everything checks out, you walk away with a temporary licence on the spot, and the permanent card follows by mail
• Keep it on you whenever you drive, and show it any time a police officer asks

If no renewal form shows up in the mail:

• Phone the Ministry of Transportation -- the responsibility falls on you to keep a valid licence
• An expired car or motorcycle licence can still be renewed within one year without any testing

Once a licence has been suspended, cancelled, or sitting expired beyond the three-year mark:

• You'll have to re-apply and satisfy every graduated-licensing requirement from scratch, tests included

Drivers who are 80 years of age or older have to renew their licence every two years. The aim is to keep older drivers mobile and independent for as long as possible while flagging anyone who is no longer safe behind the wheel.

Renewal requirements:

• Sit through a driving-record review
• Pass a vision test
• Attend a 45-minute group education session, after which an in-class screening segment gauges your fitness to drive

Depending on the outcome, you may either:

• Have to clear a road test before you can renew, or
• Be allowed to renew but then follow up by supplying medical information

None of these renewal steps cost anything -- the only thing you pay is the licence-renewal fee itself.

Ways that aging can affect driving safety:

• Weaker vision, particularly after dark
• Trouble gauging how far away things are and how fast they're moving
• A narrower range of physical movement
• Reactions that take longer
• Harder to stay focused over a long stretch
• Distractions take hold more easily
• It takes longer to make sense of what you see and hear
• Greater reliance on prescription or over-the-counter drugs that can dull driving ability

How well you can drive is closely tied to your overall health. To stay ready for the demands of safe driving:

• Ask your doctor or pharmacist whether any of your medications could interfere with driving
• Tell your doctor about changes in your vision, dizziness or fainting you can't explain, or pain that is frequent, chronic, or severe
• Skip driving when you're in pain -- it cuts into your focus and restricts how you move
• Get your hearing and eyes tested on a regular basis
• Think about taking a refresher driver's course to sharpen your knowledge
• Ask your doctor to suggest an exercise routine that builds flexibility and strength

Questions to ask yourself:

• Am I having more and more near misses?
• Have I been in any minor collisions lately?
• Is it hard for me to handle intersections, judge distances, or spot pedestrians and signs?
• Do familiar streets leave me feeling lost?
• Have relatives raised worries about how I drive?

Graduated licensing moves novice drivers (Class G1, G2, M1, M2) through a two-step path. With the exception of Class M1, you get five years to finish that path.

If your G1, G2, or M2 licence is nearing its expiry and you haven't finished:

• To keep or get back the same class, you pass a test and cover the five-year licensing fee -- a step known as "requalification"
• Before the expiry date arrives, a notice goes out spelling out your choices
• Fail to either finish the process or requalify in time, and you'll be left without a licence to drive, forcing you to start over with a Level One licence

Whenever your name or address changes, you have six days to notify the Ministry of Transportation.

Address change:

• Update your address through the ServiceOntario website, in person at a Driver and Vehicle Licence Issuing Office, or by mailing it to the Ministry of Transportation
• A replacement licence will be sent to you
• Once it arrives, destroy the old one and carry the new card

Name change:

• Bring the documents you need plus your existing licence to a Driver and Vehicle Licence Issuing Office
• They'll snap a fresh photo
• You'll get a temporary licence to use until the permanent card comes in the mail

No fee applies when the new licence is the result of a name or address change.

The law prohibits you from:

• Lending out your licence
• Allowing anyone else to use it
• Carrying a licence that has been altered
• Passing off someone else's licence as yours
• Holding more than one Ontario driver's licence at a time
• Using a fake or counterfeit licence