The DUI DMV Hearing and Your License Worried about your license? I work to keep you driving.

The 10-day deadline

The paperwork police gave you after the arrest usually works as a temporary license for 30 days. If you ask for a hearing in time and the DMV can’t decide your case before the suspension would start, it has to put the suspension on hold until it does.

When you hire me, asking for the hearing is the first thing I do. Getting a hearing after the 10 days have passed is difficult, and waiting too long is one of the most common mistakes I see.

How long the DMV suspension lasts

• First DUI, 21 or older: four months.
• A repeat DUI within 10 years: one year.
• Refusing a chemical test: one year for a first refusal, two years for a second, three for a third.
• Under 21: one year for a blood alcohol level of 0.01% or more.

That’s just the DMV’s case. A DUI conviction in court brings its own separate suspension. Winning one doesn’t automatically win the other, so I plan both together. How the two cases fit together.

The hearing itself

My clients usually don’t attend. Sometimes I need your testimony, but often anything you say there only works against you, so the better plan is usually for you to stay home and let me handle it.

The hearing is run by a DMV hearing officer: a DMV employee, not a judge, and not required to be a lawyer. The same person puts the DMV’s evidence into the record and then decides the case. Whether that’s fair is a question California’s Supreme Court is still deciding.

Here’s how I handle it:

• When the facts are on your side, I ask the DMV to set aside the suspension before the hearing ever takes place.
• When they aren’t, I hold the DMV to its own rules. These hearings come with technical procedural rules, and they aren’t always followed. When one isn’t, I make sure it’s on the record.

Refusals: the paperwork vs. the video

A refusal is where the DMV hearing matters most. There’s no restricted license at all during a refusal suspension, so the hearing can decide whether you drive for a year.

The paperwork usually just says “refused.” The officer checks a box on a form saying you were warned and refused. The body camera video often tells a more complicated story. Sometimes there was no warning at all, or a wrong or misleading one. Sometimes the person asked a couple of questions, and the officer called that a refusal. The rules for a valid refusal are strict and clear, and the form never shows those details. So I always get the video.

The same issues matter in court, where a refusal isn’t a separate charge but can bring tougher penalties.

If the DMV rules against you: a writ

The hearing officer doesn’t have the last word. Within 30 days of the DMV’s decision, you can file a writ: an appeal asking a superior court judge to review the hearing. The judge reviews the record, so I build that record with a judge in mind from the start. Refusal cases are often among the strongest writs, because the rules are so clear.

Filing a writ doesn’t put the suspension on hold by itself, but I can ask the court for a stay when I file it. A writ also comes with costs, like the court’s filing fee and the hearing transcript. If the judge finds the DMV acted arbitrarily or capriciously, the judge can order the DMV to pay back some or all of the legal fees you paid for the writ, up to $7,500.

Driving during a suspension: restricted licenses

Even if a suspension takes effect, many people can keep driving. For a first DUI, if you’re 21 or older and took the chemical test, you usually choose between two restricted licenses:

• An ignition interlock restriction. Available as soon as the suspension starts. You can drive anywhere, in a car with an interlock: a breath tester that has to be passed before the car will start. Most of my clients choose this one.
• A work and DUI-program restriction. Available after 30 days with no driving. No interlock, but you can only drive to, from, and during work and to your DUI program, and it usually lasts much longer, about a year.

Which one fits depends on how you drive, what you can afford, and how long you can live with the limits. I walk you through it, including the timing and the paperwork.

• Refusals: no restricted license.
• Repeat DUIs: longer suspensions, and the interlock is usually the way back to driving. Second DUI.
• Drug-only DUIs: an interlock tests only for alcohol, so the options are more limited and take longer.

And if you win the DMV hearing, you may not need a restricted license at all, unless you’re convicted of a DUI in court.

Commercial drivers

If you drive for a living, the DMV case can decide your career. A restricted license means downgrading to a regular license first, so winning the hearing matters even more, and I’m much more likely to take it all the way to a writ, and to ask the court to put the suspension on hold while the writ is decided.

Timing matters too. A DUI case in court can take a year or more, and I can manage the pace of both cases so that, even in the worst case, you have time to make other arrangements. A DUI on your record can also make commercial jobs and insurance hard to get, which is one more reason to look for every way to beat it.

SR-22 insurance

A restricted license, and getting your license back, requires an SR-22: proof of insurance your insurer files with the DMV. Some people buy separate liability insurance just to carry the SR-22, hoping to keep the DUI from their main insurer. Whether that saves money depends on your insurer, your policy, and how often they check your record. Honestly, no one can predict it, so I don’t advise on it.

Questions