Ontario Offers Drivers License Extension Due to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused cancelations and delays of various events and deadlines around the world. If you’re in Ontario and you received a driver’s license renewal notice during the lockdown, you can officially throw it in the trash.
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License renewal extension
A notice on the Ontario government website states that drivers will not be in danger of losing their licenses if they expire while the province’s full-time DriveTest Centres and part-time Travel Point locations are closed. These facilities closed toward the end of March to help slow the spread of the coronavirus and remain closed until further notice.
Since the website did not state whether this applied to G1 or G2 licenses, Driving.ca reached out for an official statement and was told that all licenses, including the aforementioned types, “will continue to remain valid and legal past the expiry until further notice.”
Missed test penalty waived
Ontario typically charges a fee for missed road tests, but during the COVID-19 pandemic the province is waiving that fee, starting from March 23 until further notice. However, the government advises you to reschedule or cancel any appointment you have coming up using the online portal.
Coleman Molnar from Driving.ca recommends that drivers take the extension and use that time to study and practice, since it doesn’t look like the testing requirement will go away any time soon.
“…it’s not the all-clear you might’ve hoped for if you’re reading this hoping Ontario would go the way of Georgia, which, in an effort to clear the backlog in the system, issued nearly 20,000 licenses to teens without making them first take a road test,” Molnar writes.
Molnar reports that the Ministry of Transportation is working to establish a plan for when road tests will resume.
Free licenses in Georgia?
Though the state of Georgia did originally issue licenses without requiring tests, it has since backtracked. CNN reports that the governor signed a new order that supersedes his previous order. Any driver in Georgia who received a license without taking a test will be required to complete and pass the road test by the end of September.
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Experience on the road is essential to becoming a skilled and licensed driver. Hopefully, young drivers and their driving instructors will continue with driving instruction until testing resumes. This extra experience on the road will make the actual road test so much easier to ace.
DeAnn Owens is a Dayton transplant by way of the Windy City, yet considers herself to be a California girl at heart even though she’s only visited there once. To get through the dreaded allergy season unique to the Miami Valley, she reads, writes, complains about the weather, and enjoys spending time with her husband, two sons, and their newest addition, a Boston terrier puppy that is now in charge of all their lives. In the future, she hopes to write a novel and travel through time. See more articles by DeAnn.