If you have been suspected and caught with driving under the influence, watch this video to learn more about what happens next.
Attorney William Fay explains what to do immediately after being arrested for suspicion of drunk driving, DWI, or BUI and what driving privileges you may have and which ones get immediately revoked, as well as exactly how to proceed with paperwork and court appearances to get your license reinstated quickly.
TRANSCRIPT – I’m sorry to hear you picked up a DWI, here are some of the things you need to know, before you do anything else.
Your license is likely revoked at this point for 30 days, that’s true if you refused or blew a 0.08 or higher. If you blew a 0.07 or lower, or your case is a blood case, then you might not have a civil revocation. But let’s assume that you do and your license is revoked.
After 10 days, you are eligible for a limited driving privilege. On the 9th day, you need to file a form called a petition for limited driving privilege. That form is AOCCVR-9. You can find it on the state’s administrative office website. You need to fill 3 copies of that form out and file it with the clerk.
On the 10th day, you come with your privilege, that’s form AOVCVR-10, again you’ll need 3 copies of that. In order to be eligible for a privilege, you have to have signed up for a substance abuse assessment, have enrolled in the recommended treatment, you need to have a DL-123, which is form you get from your insurance agent showing that you have liability insurance. You need to have a copy of your driving record here in North Carolina (or if you are licnesed in another state a copy of your driving record there), and you need to have 100 dollars.
If you work outside the hours of Monday-Friday 6 am – 8 pm, and you need driving privilege that reflects those additional hours, then you need to have a letter on your work’s letterhead (or if you work for yourself you can do it on your own letterhead), something that justifies your need to expand your limited driving privilege from Monday-Friday 6 am – 8 pm to whatever it is you need to expand it for. There are certain jobs that you’ll need it expanded to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that’s possible with that kind of documentation.
First thing you should be doing is looking at assessment agencies, there are a multitude here in Wake county. The assessment itself cost 100 dollars. The assessment agency will need to see your test ticket, which is a small rectangular piece of paper you were given that shows what you blew on the ECIR-2, if applicable. They’ll want to see a copy of your citation and they’ll want to see your driving record as well. Most of these assessing agencies can pull your driving record for you, but they’ll charge an $8-$15 fee to do so.
Again, after you take your assessment, they’ll then recommend some course of treatment. The minimum they’ll recommend is what’s called a 16 hour ADETS course, and there really is no statutory maximum they might recommend. They might recommend you go into in-patient treatment, or that you take 90 hours of intensive alcohol classes, or anything in between.
Whatever it is they recommend, if you want to be eligible for the limited driving privilege, then you would need to have agreed with their assessment and enrolled in those classes. These are classes where, if you are convicted of DWI, you are going to have to do anyway, so you may as well get them done on the front end.
If your case is try-able, and you think you have a decent chance of winning, then you can do the assessment and apply for the classes. Then after you talk to an attorney, your attorney says hey listen, let’s hold off on those until after we see what happens with your trial or after I’ve investigated your case a little further, you can certainly do that.
Those are things you need to do to be licensed or at least get a limited driving privilege for the 11th – 30th day of your civil revocation. Again, on the 30th day, you pay 100 additional dollars to the court and you get your license back with no restrictions. In addition to that, you can contest the covil revocation if you want to, although I really wouldn’t recommend doing that on your own, that’s the kind of thing you want to hire an attorney for. You file paperwork with the clerk and they will set a hearing in DWI court as quickly as possible. That hearing isn’t so much whether you’re guilt of DWI, it’s whether the state has established grounds sufficient to have a civil revocation logged against you. And, again, I advise you to lawyer up for that.
Really, for any of thee kinds of things, if you are going to get a lawyer for DWI, it makes sense to go ahead and get one early so your lawyer can do all the work for you on the limited driving privileges. They are not the kinds of things where you would have to come to court, your lawyer can do these things and you can pick them up in your lawyer’s office or your lawyer can get them to you one way or the other. It’s one of those things that adds value for your attorney to do rather than you trying to do them yourself. Again, I’m sorry you got a DWI but these are some first steps you should consider.
