Two Components to a DUI Charge: One with the Criminal Court System and One with the Department of Motor Vehicles
When someone is first stopped and arrested for driving under the influence, there are actually two cases that start at the same time.
One of them, which people expect, is in the court system dealing with the judge and the District Attorney or City Prosecutor. The other case, one that a lot of people don’t know about, is with the Department of Motor Vehicles. The California Department of Motor Vehicles or the DMV starts their own administrative case that parallels or goes side-by-side with the court case.
DMV Has Power to Suspend Driver’s License after DUI Charge
With the Department of Motor Vehicles, they have the power to suspend the driver’s license which, a lot of times, can be more important than the regular case, which is typically called the criminal case.
Why Drivers Are Unaware of the Consequences the DMV Can Level after a DUI Charge?
I just don’t think there’s enough public notice about the fact that the Department of Motor Vehicles has the power to suspend the license. They can also require classes, charge fees and really disrupt people’s lives.
Police Should Inform Motorists about Requesting a DMV Hearing Following DUI Charge
The police officers who arrest somebody for driving under the influence are supposed to tell someone that in addition to a court date, they also have a very limited time to demand the Department of Motor Vehicles Administrative per se hearing.
Sometimes officers just completely forget to tell people and people are released from the Booking Department not by the officers themselves and the people don’t get paperwork. Nobody tells them what’s going on. It just falls through the cracks and people end up getting their license suspended without ever knowing about what the officers should have informed them.
After a DUI Arrest, Drivers Are Given a Temporary License by the Police with Instructions to Contact the DMV with a Hearing Request within 10 Days
The way that it’s supposed to work with an arrest for DUI is the officer is supposed to take a person’s license and give them a paper, which is a pink temporary license. The police officer takes the hard copy of the driver’s license card and sends that to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
On the pink piece of paper that’s a temporary license is some contact information from the Department of Motor Vehicles. It says in there that you only have 10 days to request or demand a hearing and if you don’t get your request in within 10 days, the license automatically becomes suspended.
There are some exceptions and some little alterations or variations in the law depending on a particular case. But in most DUI cases, the officer is supposed to take the license, the hard license, give a pink temporary license and tell the person they have 10 days to demand a hearing. If they don’t, the license will automatically be suspended.
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