DUI and Your Driver's License

With regard to license suspensions and DUI, when you are arrested for DUI you are given a pink thirty day temporary license for the DMV. That temporary license is a fully unrestricted license that allows you to drive anywhere just like a normal driver's license would. But the important thing is, is that when we request a DMV hearing within ten days of the arrest we are able to get a stay of the suspension which means that that suspension that would go into effect at the end of the thirty days is stayed—pending the outcome of the hearing. What the means is, being stayed, is a fancy legal word for the suspension doesn't go into effect until we are able to get a result, an outcome, from the DMV hearing.

The DMV, like most government agencies, are totally backed up. We may not get a hearing for several months. So during that time it wouldn't be fair for you to have a license suspended before you even had an opportunity to have a hearing at the DMV. Let's say that the ruling at the DMV is adverse to you and you are given a license suspension on a first offense DUI, the administrative suspension will be for four months. That means that they are seeking to suspend your driving privilege for four months. No driving at all; however, we are able to convert that four months suspension into a restricted license after thirty days and a restricted license will allow someone to drive to work, to school, to and from the DMV and to and from any type of program class that they may be required to do.