The Status of Drivers’ Licenses after DUI Arrests

A question that I frequently hear is will I lose my license. I wanted to talk about will I lose my license. The short answer is that if you do not do anything then the Department of Motor Vehicles will automatically suspend your license. Most times, when someone is stopped and arrested for a DUI involving alcohol, the police officers will take their license from them and give them a pink temporary license.

You Must Request a Hearing to Avoid the DMV’s Automatic License Suspension Following a DUI Arrest

If they don’t do anything the DMV will automatically suspend the license. What we want to do is we want to stop that automatic suspension. We have a right to stop that suspension and put in place what’s called a stay.

An Attorney Will Request a Stay on the Suspension, Which Will Allow You to Drive While He or She Prepares a Defense for the DMV Hearing

We stop the suspension, we get a stay and we get a new temporary license, which will allow a person to continue to drive until we have a hearing. We have a right to a hearing at the DMV. We will get a hearing date and in preparing for the hearing we will get discovery police reports and sworn statements.

During this investigation time while we’re working on the case you have a temporary license that allows you to drive. We can get additional evidence in from our own experts or we could subpoena witnesses, police officers into the hearing. We can do the hearing in person, which is always recommended where we get to make an argument to save the driver’s license.

While It Can Be Challenging to Prevail at the DMV Hearing, It Is Possible

After we have this hearing, which could be 30 or 60 days after the person was stopped for DUI, the DMV will then make a decision. That decision will either be to suspend the license or do what’s called a set aside and give the license back. It is possible to obtain a set aside.

They are difficult but it does not mean it doesn’t happen. It does happen on a regular basis. The first step is to get the stop for the automatic suspension and then the next step is to do everything we can to fight and win at the DMV to get a set aside and stop any suspension from happening. What happens if the DMV does end up suspending the license either because of the automatic suspension or after a hearing? There are things that can be done to shorten the suspension period of time and get a person back with a valid license driving as soon as possible.

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