Traffic

How many points is a speeding ticket in New York?

By Michael R. Cardinale, Attorney, admitted in New York 1997 · Last updated August 23, 2026 · 5 min read · every figure verified against NYS DMV

1. The short answer

Between three and eleven points, decided entirely by the bracket you are charged in, not by what you were actually doing. More than 40 MPH over the limit is eleven points, which reaches the suspension threshold on a single ticket.

Which is why the bracket on the ticket matters more than almost anything else about it, and why the gap between what you are charged with and what you are finally convicted of is where the money is.

2. The brackets

Charge	Points
1 to 10 MPH over	3
11 to 20 MPH over	4
21 to 30 MPH over	6
31 to 40 MPH over	8
More than 40 MPH over	11
Speed not specified on the ticket	3
Speeding in a work zone	8

Note that the brackets step rather than slide. One mile per hour can move you from four points to six, or from eight to eleven, the difference between an annoyance and a suspension.

3. Two deadlines, and they run on different clocks

This is the part almost nobody gets right, because the two numbers sound similar and are not:

11 points in 24 months, your license may be suspended.
6 points in 18 months, the DMV bills a Driver Responsibility Assessment.

Different thresholds, different windows. A driver can be clear of one and caught by the other. The DMV counts from the date of each violation, not the date you were convicted, so a ticket you took months to resolve is dated back to the day you were stopped.

4. What the DMV bills you, separately from the court

The Driver Responsibility Assessment is a second bill, from a different agency, arriving after the court is finished with you. It is paid annually over three years:

Six points in 18 months, $100 a year, $300 total.
More than six, add $25 a year for each additional point, which is $75 more per point across the three years. Seven points is $375; eight is $450.
An alcohol or drug-related conviction, or a chemical test refusal, $250 a year, $750 total, regardless of points.

Two things catch people. You owe it whether or not you hold a New York license, an out-of-state driver is billed the same. And not paying it is itself grounds for suspension, which is how a ticket somebody paid by mail becomes a suspended license two years later.

5. What changed on February 16, 2026

New York revised the point schedule, and a lot of what is published about this is still pre-change. Two things moved that affect speeding drivers:

The suspension lookback went from 18 months to 24. Violations that would once have aged out may still count.
Several other offenses went up sharply, passing a stopped school bus from 5 to 8, and speeding in a construction zone now a flat 8 regardless of speed.

Does a defensive driving course remove points?

No, and the wording matters. A DMV-approved Point and Insurance Reduction Program course causes four points to be subtracted when the DMV works out whether you have reached a suspension, and gets you a 10 percent reduction on liability and collision premiums.

What it does not do is remove anything. The tickets and their points stay on your driving record where insurers can see them, and the course does not cancel a mandatory suspension or revocation.

The number insurers actually use

Not the DMV’s. Insurance companies run their own scoring and are not bound by your point total, what they price off is the conviction sitting on your abstract. Which is why a reduction that moves a conviction to a non-moving violation can matter to a premium even where the point difference looks small.