License After a Maryland DUI
If you are arrested for a DUI, the police officer will ask you to submit to the breath test. This is a test that will take place at the police station and it is a test that is admissible in court against you. What happens with your license after a DUI depends on whether or not you agree to take the breath test and what the breath test results are. This applies to Maryland drivers only. This is not applicable to someone who holds a license in a state other than Maryland. For more information on how a DUI may affect your license, speak with a DUI lawyer in Maryland.
How The Breath Test Affects Your License
A breath test can be used as evidence against you when in court for a DUI. The officer will read a form to you called the DR15 Advice of Rights. This form explains to you the consequences of taking the test or not taking the test. If you review the advice of rights sheet and decide to refuse to take the test then the officer takes your actual license and gives you a temporary license, which is good for 45 days. After the 45th day, your privilege to drive will be suspended in the state of Maryland. The only way that you will be able to drive is if you agree to participate in the ignition interlock program.
If you agree to take a test and you blow a 0.08 to a 0.15, the officer still takes your license and replaces it with that temporary 45-day license but you will then have the opportunity to go to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) and request a hearing so that you will be able to drive for limited purposes. You can get what’s called a restricted license and be able to drive for purposes of work, school, etc.
If you agree to take the test and you blow a 0.15 or more, then you will receive the temporary license for 45 days and the only way you will be able to drive after the 45 days is if you participate in the ignition interlock system. If you take the test and you blow less than a 0.08, the officer does not confiscate your license and you just continue to have the same license that had been issued to you from the MVA.
How a Maryland DUI Lawyer Can Help
A Maryland DUI lawyer is someone who does a lot of these cases and has experience. A MD DUI Lawyer can look at the facts surrounding the DUI and help you make a determination as to whether or not a challenge to a license suspension would be successful. There are a lot of factors that have to be considered in determining whether or not you could successfully challenge the suspension at a hearing.
An attorney knows what those issues are and to review all of the paperwork that the officer gave you to help determine if you would have success at that hearing or if that hearing, practically speaking, would be a waste of your time. That is why speaking with a Maryland DUI attorney, especially within the ten-day time-frame after being arrested and charged, can be very helpful. It can help you to decide whether or not to spend the $150 to challenge the hearing or just go ahead and immediately enroll in the interlock program.
This is also especially true of people who have a commercial driver’s license. There are very different, strict rules that apply to individuals who hold a CDL and it’s extremely important for someone who does to have a consultation with an attorney right away to discuss the MVA consequences.