Your License After a Montgomery County DUI Charge

In addition to criminal penalties such as fines and jail time, a DUI conviction also often carries some type of penalty against your license including suspension and in some cases revocation. To discuss what may happen to your license call and schedule a consultation with a Montgomery County DUI lawyer today.

Your License After a Montgomery County DUI Charge

What happens to your license is likely going to depend on the decision that you made when the officer asked you to submit to a breathalyzer test. There are basically three sets of punishments in Maryland after a DUI for an individual’s driver’s license. There is the low blow, which is a blow between 0.08 and 0.14. There is the high blow which is a blow of 0.15 or higher. Then there’s the refusal. Each one of those has a different set of penalties associated with it. The low blow penalty for a first offense is a 45-day suspension where an individual is eligible for a modification of that suspension. They can get a work permit which will allow them to  drive to and from work, during the course of employment, to and from any kind of alcohol education and treatment, to medical or dental appointments for themselves or their family, and to court ordered activities like probation or community service.

Penalites for a High Blow

The penalties for a high blow are a 90-day hard suspension. That means there’s no modification of the suspension, absolutely no driving for a period of ninety days. The only alternative to that is participation in the MVA’s ignition interlock program. The ignition interlock program requires than an individual install the interlock device in their vehicle for a period of one year and then only operating vehicles that are equipped with the interlock device. So to sum up, the penalty for a high blow first offense, is either 90 days no driving or one year with ignition interlock. The penalties for refusal are the highest penalties although not by very much. The penalties for a first refusal in Maryland is either a 270-day hard suspension or one year in the ignition interlock program similar to the penalties for a high blow. So instead of 90 days or interlock for a high blow, the refusal is 270 days or interlock.

Factors that Determine what Happens to your Driving Privileges

Well that’s going to depend on what choice you made at the police station when asked to blow into the breathalyzer. It’s also going to depend on the facts of the case. So sometimes you can win administrative suspension cases by showing that an individual didn’t refuse to do a breathalyzer test, that they were just physically unable to do that test.
In other cases, you can show that there was some kind of defect in the machine, in the administration of the test itself, or that an individual wasn’t actually operating a motor vehicle. Additionally, there may be some other areas in the paperwork or some other type of legal justification to not suspend the license.