Brisbane Drink Driving Lawyers

Drink Driving, Traffic and Licences

There are numerous lawyers who can help you with your drink driving charges (dui), loss of licence and other traffic offences. On this page we will provide some background and more information on these offences and the penalties which they bring.

DRINK DRIVING (DUI) OFFENCES

The penalties for drink driving in Brisbane are harsh, and depend largely upon your Blood Alcohol Concentration. Generally speaking, the higher your Blood Alcohol Concentration, the harsher your penalty. A good Brisbane Drink Driving Lawyer will  be able to advise you whether there are any merits in defending your case, if the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) reading was accurate and also whether time limits were observed. Penalties for drink driving will generally involve licence disqualification and a fine, but repeat offenders also face the prospects of imprisonment.

PENALTIES FOR DRINK DRIVING

A minor offence penalty (a reading of under 0.15%) will consist of disqualification periods from anywhere between 1 to 9 months (the duration will depend upon the type of licence you hold) in addition to a fine from around $200 up to around $2,000.
However, a major offence (generally speaking a reading of over 0.15%, or failing to provide a breath or blood sample) will bring far harsher penalties. The licence suspension is a minimum of 6 months, and the fine anywhere between $1000 too $3000. If there have been previous convictions, the presiding judge will  consider adding to these penalties, and if there have been more than 3 major drinking offences within 5 years, then an automatic jail sentence will apply.

WORK LICENCE – DRINK DRIVING

Depending upon your circumstances, a good Brisbane Drink Driving Lawyer could be able to secure what is called a “work licence”; this is of course considering that you meet the relevant criteria. The application must be made at the time the conviction is recorded and before the court makes an order disqualifying you from holding a driver’s licence.

The criteria that you need to meet in order to be considered for a work licence are:

* you hold a current Queensland provisional or open driver’s licence;
* you have had a blood alcohol level of less than 0.15%;
* you were not driving under a work licence at the time;
* you were not driving under a licence that required a nil alcohol reading;
* you have not been convicted anywhere of drink driving or dangerous driving or had a licence suspended or cancelled in the last 5 years (some exceptions);
* you can show that failure to obtain a work licence will result in extreme financial hardship such as losing your job.

OTHER TRAFFIC OFFENCES

In the state of Queensland , if the holder of a driver’s licence gains enough demerit points, the right to possess a licence may be taken away from the driver. The amount of points required for this to occur depends on the type of licence that is held. In the occasion that enough demerit points are acquired, QLD Transport will write to the licence holder and give them the option of either a suspension for 6 months or enter a “Good Driver Behaviour” period for 1 year, during which period the driver is allocated 1 single demerit point. If the driver collects more than 1 demerit point in that year, the licence is automatically suspended.

Queensland Transport will also write to a licence holder if caught for a high speed offence. A high speed offence is generally considered to be exceeding the speed limit by more than 40 kilometres per hour. This will include an 8 point demerit allocation, but even if that does not take the driver over their allocated points, there is an automatic suspension of the licence for a period of 6 months.

If either of these events happen, you have the option to apply to the Court against the suspension for a Special Hardship Order as long as you are able to show that the loss of the licence will cause you or your family extreme financial hardship by depriving you of the means of earning your income or that it would cause severe and unusual hardship to you or your family by other means. It is also necessary to prove to the Court that you are an appropriate person to hold a licence… in other words, to prove your character when it comes to your traffic history.
A good Drink Driving Lawyer in Brisbane will be able to put together all the relevant documentation required to prove this character to the Court.

Obviously the Queensland Government is pursuing a focus on road safety vigorously in recent years, and there are now severe penalties for dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention and high speed offences. Of course, the penalty is likely to be more serious if death or injury is caused.

A Brisbane Lawyer will be able to provide quality legal advice on all aspects of drink driving & traffic offences.