This article was first published on December 7th, 2012. Some of the laws may have changed since this that date.
While the DUI is pending, your license is no longer valid. What will happen is that they will give you a ticket, which serves as a permit and lets you keep driving for 10 days. During those 10 days, you can apply for an administrative hearing to stop the DMV from further suspending your license. Just by asking for the hearing, you will get the extended temporary permit, which will allow you to drive for about 42 days until we can get you a hearing in front of a DMV.
Then, at the DMV, it depends on whether you or your attorney wins the hearing and gets your license back. If you lose the hearing, and if you blow over a .08, then you can lose your license for six months, but if you refuse the test, then you’ll lose your license for a year.
On a six-month license loss, it’s 30 days of no driving at all and on a year license loss, it’s actually 90 days of no driving at all. At the end of the day, it’s not a mistake – the police officer isn’t forgetting to give you your license back. Technically, they’re not supposed to, because just by virtue of the arrest, your license is in fact suspended, and you only have that 10-day permit.
If you do nothing, if you lose that 10-day window, and you don’t ask for the hearing from DMV, then expect the 6-month of the 1-year license suspension dropped on you. If you’re having difficulty arranging for your license since a recent DUI, call one of our attorney experienced with suspended licenses today.
What happens if you are caught driving on a suspended license and that suspension is based on a DUI? The sad answer to that is that you’re looking at jail. Typically, the judge will not want to give you probation after you’ve been arrested for DUI, had your license suspended for DUI, and then get caught driving on it. Why is that? Very simply, judges hate suspended licenses. And while they’re maybe more lenient on someone who has failed to pay a ticket, they’re really harsh and come down hard on people that get arrested for DUI, have their license suspended, and then disregard the law, or the court order, and drive.
You’re maybe asking yourself, what am I supposed to be doing? I know I’m arrested for DUI, but my license is suspended. I still have to support my family, go to counseling, pay the fines and court cost, and I can’t do that without a vehicle.
The judge knows that your suspension is based on DUI, and it’s going to be difficult to talk that judge out of sentencing you to jail time. In some cases, though, an attorney can argue that it was necessary for you to drive, or that you had no other alternative but to drive the day that you got caught in order to, for example, pick up medicine for your children, or some other emergency that an attorney in Orlando can bring forward to the court’s attention.
The best thing to do, if you are charged with DUI, or have a DUI suspension, is to find an alternative method of transportation. That certainly may not be the solution that you’re looking for, and it can be especially hard if you’re facing a year suspension or more. That’s why it is so imperative that if you’re arrested for DUI, that you try your best to get out of a DUI suspension. It’s only a matter of time if you think you’re going to drive that you’re going to get caught on a DUI suspension and you could very well pay a very severe consequence.
The Umansky Law Firm Criminal Defense & Injury Attorneys
