Since 2019 police in Australia have been able to issue a penalty notice of $561 and place drivers in 3-month suspension if they reach a novice range when a reading is taken of their blood alcohol. You can pay the fine and accept the driving suspension or you can appeal at a local court with a drink driving offense lawyer. You would together either state a not guilty and prove that, or that you want to plead guilty but be granted a conditional release order or section 10 dismissal both of which mean you do not face a conviction. With that, there is no license suspension and no fine. Here is a look at how the courts deal with a novice range drink driving case.
A closer look at novice range drink driving cases
Novice range drink driving refers to when someone who only holds a provisional license or a learner license is pulled over and tested for drunk driving, and has a blood alcohol level of 0.001 to 0.019. When you are convicted of this it means you are disqualified from driving anymore. But if you plead guilty to it and you with your drink driving lawyer persuade the court to deal with you under a non-conviction order then you will not have the charge and conviction against your name on record and you will not be disqualified from driving.
Offense one – If you have not been convicted in the last 5 years of any major traffic offense then the automatic length for being disqualified from driving is up to 6 months. The court can lower the period to a minimum of 3 months in some cases. The top fine is $2,200. A drink driving offense lawyer is the best way to get the lower end of the punishment.
Subsequent offenses – If this is the second offense in the last 5 years or more. Then the potential penalties are a 1 to 3-month driving disqualification followed by a 12 month period. Which has to have an interlock device on your car as well as up to a $3,300 fine. The court might not impose the interlock requirement. And instead impose a 6 to 12-month disqualification from the driving period plus up to $3300 in fines.
The courts chose to deal with the matter under the conditional release order. Or section 10 dismissals can only happen when there has been no other conviction for major traffic offenses in the last 5 years. When looking at statistics for sentencing for novice range drink driving. You can see for their first offense that 7% fall under section 10 dismissals, 33%. under conditional release order, 1% under section 10A, 58% get a fine and disqualification, And less than 1% get disqualification. And a community service order. For subsequent offenses, the most usual punishment at 84% is disqualification and a fine.
Talk to your drink driving lawyer and make sure they have experience with such cases.