Repeat offences – Driving Law

Repeat Drink Driving Offences in Queensland

Steven Brough — Thu, 23 May 2024 07:32:00 +0000

Introduction

Drink driving remains a serious offence in Queensland, with strict laws in place to deter drivers from getting behind the wheel under the influence of alcohol. However, when it comes to repeat drink driving offences, the penalties escalate significantly, reflecting the heightened risk and potential harm to the community. This guide aims to shed light on the consequences of repeat drink driving offences in Queensland and why securing legal advice is crucial for anyone facing such charges.

What Constitutes a Repeat Drink Driving Offence?

A repeat drink driving offence occurs when an individual is charged with drink driving more than once within a specified period. In Queensland, this period is typically five years. Repeat offenders face harsher penalties compared to first-time offenders, as the law assumes that they have not learned from their previous mistakes and continue to pose a risk on the roads.

Consequences of Repeat Drink Driving Offences

Increased Fines

Repeat drink driving offenders can expect to face substantial fines. The exact amount depends on several factors, including the level of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at the time of the offence and the number of prior offences. For instance, a second offence might attract a fine in the range of $1,500 to $2,000, while subsequent offences could see fines exceeding $2,500.

Longer Licence Disqualifications

One of the most immediate and impactful penalties for repeat drink driving is licence disqualification. The duration of disqualification increases with each subsequent offence as the minimum disqualification imposed by law increases. Further offences could lead to indefinite disqualification, significantly affecting one’s mobility and employment prospects.

Mandatory Imprisonment

Queensland law stipulates a mandatory prison term for people who have 3 high range drink driving charges within 5 years.

Alcohol Ignition Interlock Program

Repeat offenders are usually required to participate in the Alcohol Ignition Interlock Program. This program mandates the installation of an interlock device in the offender’s vehicle, which requires the driver to provide a breath sample before the vehicle can start.

Impact on Employment and Personal Life

The consequences of repeat drink driving extend beyond legal penalties. Licence disqualification can lead to job loss, especially for those whose employment depends on driving. This is especially true for repeat drink drivers as the law states that you cannot apply for a work licence if you have had another drink driving charge within 5 years.

Why Good Legal Advice is Essential

Given the severe consequences of repeat drink driving offences, obtaining sound legal advice is critical. An experienced traffic lawyer can provide invaluable assistance in minimising the penalty. Repeat drink driving offences in Queensland carry severe consequences. Increased fines, longer licence disqualifications, mandatory imprisonment, and participation in the Alcohol Ignition Interlock Program are just some of the penalties that repeat offenders can face. However, with the right legal advice, it is possible to navigate these challenges effectively and achieve a more favourable outcome.

If I contacted you what would occur?

If you contact us, then Steven Brough the firm’s founder or our office manager Belinda Smyth will take the call or receive the email or contact form. They have over 50 years legal experience between them, we can provide immediate legal assistance and answer any questions you have. We will discuss your case, provide guidance and send a quote by email with additional relevant information about your charge, all at no cost.

If you want to engage us then it’s easy, there is a form you can complete online in less than 15 minutes. If you don’t want to engage us or want to engage another firm that’s fine, you won’t be hassled and at worst you will just have more information about your charge. Once engaged one of our lawyers will go through your matter and contact you to discuss what the best way forward is to achieve the best results. Every one of our lawyers are very experienced with many hundreds of courts appearances for drink driving charges each.

Remember its critical you get advice before going to court, a drink driving charge no matter the reading will have an impact on you, your family and your employment or business.

How do I get more information or engage you to act for me?

If you want to engage us or just need further information or advice then you can either;

Use our contact form and we will contact you by email or phone at a time that suits you
Call us on 1300 952 255 seven days a week, 7am to 7pm
Click here to select a time for us to have a free 15 minute telephone conference with you
Email steven@claritylaw.com.au
Send us a message on Facebook Messenger
Click the help button to the right and leave us a message

We have a range of articles on drink driving on our traffic law blog. Some of the most recent have included:

Queensland Drink Driving (2024)
Top 5 Drink Driving Myths
The Essential Guide to Obtaining a Work Licence
How Drink Driving Matters are Heard in Queensland
What happens after your drivers licence is disqualified?
Refusing a Breathalyser Test in Queensland
Can you commit a drink driving offence in your driveway?
Immediate suspension for drink driving
Special Hardship Orders v Work Licences
High Range DUI
Going through a drink driving charge in Brisbane Magistrate Court
DUI Charges
Ultimate Guide to High Range Drink Driving
Can you beat a DUI?
Navigating Drink Driving Charges in Queensland: Top 5 Do’s and Don’ts
Disqualification vs Suspension, what is the difference in Queensland?
The True Cost of a Drink Driving Conviction in Queensland
Will I get a criminal conviction for a drink driving charge?

Charged and unsure what this means for you? This article is general information, not legal advice. For advice on your exact situation, call 1300 952 255 — free, 7am–7pm, 7 days — or visit our Drink driving lawyers page.

Second Drink Driving Offence — What Will Happen in Court?

Steven Brough — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 09:01:00 +0000

It is common for people charged with a drink driving offence to come before a Queensland court with a history of drink or drug driving offences. Sometimes, these offences are dated, having occurred over 5+ years ago.

A history of drink or drug driving becomes much more relevant to a defendant, if their previous offence was within the last 5 years from the date of the offence. The reason for this is two fold:

it makes the defendant ineligible for a work licence;
it exposes a defendant to a greater minimum and maximum penalty than they otherwise would have faced

This article will focus on the second of the above, being the increase in penalty that a defendant is exposed to if this is their second or more drink driving charge.

Why is a person exposed to a higher penalty?

The Police have the power, which is often exercised to serve a “Notice of Intention to allege previous conviction” or often simply known as a Notice to Allege. This notice is served pursuant to section 47 of the Justices Act 1886 and formally puts the previous convictions before the court.

This is significant in the event of drink and drug driving offences as pursuant to section 86 of the Transport Operations (Road-Use Management) Act 1994. This section deals with the mandatory minimum disqualifications for drink and drug driving offences, for example:

Drink Driving over the general alcohol limit but not over the middle alcohol limit, the mandatory minimum is a disqualification of 1 month to a maximum of 9 months;
Drive with relevant drug in blood or saliva, the mandatory minimum is a disqualification of 1 month to a maximum of 9 months; and
Drive over the middle alcohol limit but not over the hight alcohol limit, the mandatory minimum is a disqualification of 3 months to a maximum of 12 months.

However, when a notice of intention to allege is tendered, the court must start the disqualification at a higher mandatory minimum, for example:

Drive over the general alcohol limit, with a previous like offence – the mandatory minimum becomes 3 months and the maximum 18 months;
Drive with relevant drug in blood or saliva, with a pervious like offence – the mandatory minimum becomes 3 months and the maximum 18 months;
Drive over the middle alcohol limit, with a pervious like offence – the mandatory minimum becomes 6 months; and
Drive Under the Influence of Liquor or Drug – the mandatory minimum becomes 9 months to a maximum of absolute disqualification.

The court however, will take all alleged previous convictions into account when determining whether or not to impose lengthier periods of disqualification, or indeed whether or not harsher penalties are appropriate to impose, such as community based orders such as Community Service or Probation to considering periods of imprisonment if there is a lengthy history of drink and drug driving offences.

The best thing is obviously to engage an experienced traffic lawyer to act for you. A lawyer knows what the court needs to hear to get the lowest penalty possible for a 2^nd drink driving charge.

Other things you can look to do are:

obtaining character references
where appropriate seek medical help if needed
completing a traffic offender program
completing a letter of apology
get a good traffic lawyer

I have heard that if I have three offences in 5 years I have to go to prison?

If this is your third high range drink driving charge in 3 years then the court must impose a term of imprisonment. It does not mean you will potentially serve time in prison as the court could potentially wholly suspended any sentence or give immediate release on parole if proper legal arguments are made.

If an accident occurred and someone was hurt or you have previous traffic or criminal history then the courts might be looking at whether a prison sentence might form part of the penalty

Conclusion

Drink and Drug driving offences are complex areas of law once a history of offences and multiple like offences occurring in a short period of time. Whether that is what penalties are going to be increased, whether the court can consider periods of imprisonment, or even if disqualifications are going to be served concurrently or cumulatively. Engaging an experienced traffic lawyer will allow you to get the best outcome possible in the circumstance where this is your second or more drink driving offence. This article is only the touching off point for a sometimes difficult to interpret area of traffic law, simply reading the relevant sections of the acts, without a background in criminal and traffic law creates unease and uncertainty for clients. This article is aimed to clarifying some of these concepts.

Should I get a drink driving lawyer to represent me for a second drink driving offence?

Some people of course decide just to go to court and throw themselves on the mercy of the court and hope everything turns out fine.

The difficulty with this is the court can be harsh, the magistrate treats drink driving charges seriously. Unless you know what to say and what not to say to the magistrate then you won’t get the best outcome. Even a month or two extra disqualification is going to cost a lot in terms of lost work opportunities, extra transport costs and interference in your personal life.

Traffic Lawyers aren’t that expensive and you get to have an expert on your side taking care of everything at court and looking out for your rights and best interests.

You can see our fixed prices by clicking here

If you want to engage us or just need further information or advice then you can either;

Use our contact form and we will contact you by email or phone at a time that suits you
Call us on 1300 952 255 seven days a week, 7am to 7pm
Click here to select a time for us to call you back
Email steven@claritylaw.com.au
Send us a message on Facebook Messenger
Click the help button to the right and leave us a message

Second Drug Driving Charge

Steven Brough — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 09:28:00 +0000

Drug driving charge continues to increase in Queensland largely due to more police testing the introduction of testing for cocaine. If this is your second or more drug driving offence then you will face increase penalties and in some cases the inability to apply for a work licence.

In this blog post we will look at the penalties for a second drug driving charge and whether any defence exists.

What drugs are tested for?

Driving while a ‘relevant’ drug is present in your blood or saliva is an offence under the traffic legislation. For present purposes we will consider a ‘relevant drug’ as either cannabis, MDMA or methylamphetamine (Ice) and cocaine as these are the only illicit drugs the police saliva tests currently detect.

How in a drug driving offence detected?

In the vast majority of cases, police will direct a person to pull over and then give the person a ‘stick’ to swab over their tongue/inside of their mouth. The result is usually immediate. This is called a saliva test. Less commonly, police may require a blood test. This will generally only happen if a person is at a hospital (usually in relation to a crash), and police ask a nurse or doctor to take a sample of blood.

Once a drug is detected by the preliminary test, it is then sent to a government-run lab for thorough analysis. So long as the analysis result comes back contained within the correct form/certificate, this is considered to be conclusive evidence that a drug was present in the sample provided, and is therefore conclusive proof there was a drug present in the driver’s saliva or blood.

How much can be in your system before it is illegal?

The drug driving laws only require a detectable amount of a relevant drug to be in a person’s saliva. That is to say, the analysis results do not, unlike drink driving analysis results, give a figure of just how much of the drug was in the person’s body. This means, perversely, that a person can have the smallest trace of the drug in their system, and if this is detected, it will be sufficient to establish a charge of drug driving.

So, any detectable amount is illegal, and we do not know at what point a quantity of drug transforms from undetectable to detectable. Anecdotally, we have been told it can be days, and in extreme cases, even a week after a person has taken a drug, that it can be detected by the tests.

But I didn’t feel affected!

Having had the opportunity to observe self-represented defendants in court, a common claim/complaint is the person was not under the influence or had had the drug some days before the test. Again, unlike drink driving offences, there is no legal requirement for the person to be affected by the drug in any way.

In an indirect way, the drug driving traffic laws do what the drug possession laws don’t: they penalise drug consumption as opposed to drug possession. Given the sizeable number of people in Queensland who consume cannabis (and the other drugs to a lesser extent), enforcing these offences is low-hanging fruit for police.

What if I have a medical prescription for cannabis?

Unfortunately, it is still an offence to drive while cannabis is present in your saliva, even if it is prescription cannabis. The linked article explains in greater detail.

What are the penalties for a second offence of drug driving

The law mandates minimum disqualifications for these offences.

For the first offence, for a person on an open licence, the minimum disqualification is 1 month however for a second offence in 5 years a open licence holder faces a minimum disqualification of 3 months and a maximum of 12 months. For two prior offences within 5 years, it is 6 months.

For a learner, P plates, or unlicenced driver, the minimum penalty starts at 3 months.

Aside from disqualifications, the other penalty to expect is a fine, typically in the range of $900 to $1,300 for a second drug driving offence. There is no set rule on the amount of the fine, and the exact amount depends on your circumstances and history.

Be aware, too, that if you accumulate two or more drug driving offences before you have them dealt with in court, the disqualifications will stack, that is, run one after the other. So, if you got two drug driving offences on an open licence a couple of days apart, and were then dealt with by a court, your minimum disqualification would be 2 months: 1 month for each offence.

Possible Defences

Honest and reasonable mistake

Unfortunately, this defence is specifically precluded by section 79(12) of the Transport Operations (Road Use Management) Act 1995. That means even if there is a drug in your system and you don’t know how it got there, or it got there in some way that you didn’t intend (such as second hand smoke), you will still be liable for the offence.

Emergency

It is a defence if you can prove that you drove, and it was an emergency. Generally, the situation needs to be immediate, for example – another person in the car needs urgent medical attention. There is no limit to the situations in which the defence can apply, but it needs to be an emergency so immediate that driving while a drug was present appeared to be the only option. Obviously, feeling extremely hungry and needing to do a Macca’s run is not going to cut it!

Identification

In a very rare case, it may be possible someone else convinced police he or she was you and police charged someone according to your details and believing it was you.

There was not a drug present

This is another difficult defence to run, because once police have a certificate confirming a relevant drug is in your saliva, the only way to disprove that is to get a different expert to say the analysis is wrong.

You were in the car, or near the car, but were not going to drive

Police can charge you with being ‘in charge’ of a motor vehicle while a drug was present, that is, you weren’t driving, but you had the potential to drive.

This is different from being charged with actually driving.

The law gives you defence in such a situation, which is:

No, not for drug driving offences.

What can I do to prepare for my court date?

We, naturally, recommend you contact us and get legal advice. Getting some character references helps, and if you have history for similar offending, participating in the Queensland Traffic Offenders Program can also help. You would want to make sure you do not drive by yourself to court as, unlike NSW, there is no possibility of getting an outcome that will not disqualify your licence.

Can I get a work licence?

This is a possibility for this offence. There are a couple of pre-conditions, however:

You cannot have been disqualified or suspended within 5 years before the offence (except SPER suspension),
You must have had an open licence when the offence was committed,
You must genuinely need your licence for work, and no other reason.

You can find more detail on the subject of work licences here.

If your previous drug driving charge was within 5 years then you cannot apply for a work licence.

How can Clarity Law help me?

While many people decide to go to court without a solicitor, this is a roll of the dice.

Clarity Law can help you in the following ways:

We know the magistrates well. Fair or not, the magistrate and how he or she is handled can make a big difference to the outcome,
We are experts in traffic law. We may be able to identify issues you would not have considered and bend them in your favour in court. We are also much more likely to provide a comprehensive service compared to a law firm that only does traffic law occasionally,
We are experienced advocates. To most people, public speaking is an alien and feared event. For us, however, this is something we do multiple times per week. We know how to structure your case and deliver it in court for the most advantageous outcome.
You will get out of court early. With a solicitor by your side, you will be able to be one of the first people to have his case dealt with, rather than one of the last.
You are our focus. We help people just like you all the time. We appreciate your money and time are important to you, and we make every effort to ensure you properly understand your rights, and that you are treated with curtsey and respect.