#201 Brisbane Careless Driving

Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Brisbane Magistrates Court as he represents a client charged with Drive Without Due Care and Attention. Watch Andrew explain what happened in the courtroom, along with the outcome which he achieved and how he achieved it.

Alright today I was at Brisbane magistrates court client was charged with careless driving, otherwise known as didn't drive without due care and attention. Basically what's happened is he was driving along Mogul Road and he had his child in the back. He was asleep. He was approaching a bend and as he was going through that bend, his kids suddenly woken up and started crying. He instinctively looked back over his shoulder and by the time he looked back. He was in the lane of the oncoming traffic and has collided with an oncoming vehicle. Fortunately, it wasn't a head on, but it was still quite a serious collision. Nonetheless, basically all both cars were written off and the driver of the other vehicle had to be cut out by fire and rescue, but again no injuries other than a bit of a sore pride. But again, both cars written off and my client was charged with, as I said, drive without due care and attention, otherwise known as careless driving.

As far as penalties go. Worst case scenario is a lifetime loss of licence. So, look, the end of the day, gathered with the worst [inaudible]. You're not going to get a lifetime loss of licence, but I do see people going either by himself with lawyers that they specialise getting sometimes six months, sometimes 12 months, depending on how vigorously the prosecutor pushes for a disqualification, et cetera. As a part of preparing, I got my client to complete a reformatory course that went over three evenings, exposed him to the further consequences that could have arisen from his mistake on the road. Obviously there was vehicle damage, but there could very well have been injuries or fatalities and he was exposed to that in this course. I drafted affidavit materials for him to sign talking about what he learned at the course, or at least based on what he told me he learned, but I got him to get character references based on a template that we provide all of our clients.

I drafted written submissions of case law. There's not a lot of case law on this, but I have over the years discovered cases where persons in a similar situation. So same charge drive without due care and attention and or careless driving. They've they've left the road, neither collided with a parked vehicle or collided with another vehicle. Sorry, they've either collided with a parked vehicle with passengers in their car or they've collided with other moving vehicles with drivers and other paid persons in those vehicles. There's not much case law, but the two cases that I have managed to find over the years resulted in fine only so no loss of licence. So, and going back to penalties, as I said, worst cases are lifetime loss of licence, but for this particular charge, there is no mandatory minimum disqualification. So technically the magistrate does have the power to give it fine only where appropriate.

It's very hard to get that not often given out, but I always go hard to try and get that outcome, particularly if there's no offending ever like nature in the person's history. So, as I said, I prepared written submissions of the case law, and obviously I prepared oral submissions to put to the magistrate, to try to persuade them, to exercise their discretion in not disqualifying my client's licence. So my goals were twofold, "A" to try and persuade the magistrate to give a fine only and not disqualify my client's licence, but also "B" given my client was self-employed. He held concerns with the regard, the impact that a recorded conviction may have on his business and his ability to get work moving forward. So, the second limb of my instructions was to push for no conviction recorded. I don't always ask for no conviction recorded, but in certain circumstances where it's warranted and I won't go into the details of how I make that assessment now, but there're certain forms of employment or characteristics in a person's traffic history that warrant me making those submissions.

I mean, as I said, I don't ask for everyday because the magistrate get sick of it, but where it's appropriate all make submissions for a conviction recorded. So again, I made those preparations beforehand, drafted those written submissions prepared by verbal submissions, got him to do that course, got him to get his references. I met him at court today prior to going into the courtroom, we grabbed a conference room, ran through my submissions, the procedure, what he could expect, et cetera. We went in, initially the prosecutor indicated that they were going to be pushing hard for a disqualification given that, I mean, let's face it. It was a pretty full on collision. Two cars written off person cut out of the vehicle. Obviously the road was closed for some time. Their initial position was that they were going to push hard for a disqualification, but by the time I'd raised with both them and the magistrate, the case law, the fact that he'd done the course that I'd asked him to do, the references and his quite good traffic history. They did soften that approach.

Anyway, sure version is I was successful in both fronts. "A" I was successful on persuading the magistrate not to disqualify my client's licence. So no disqualification, he was given a fine only, and again, he can keep driving no impact on his licence. He will however, incur three demerit points, but he's got plenty of points. So that's not going to be a problem for him, but again, the court did not disqualify his licence, fine only.

This second aspect wasn't as easy, but I, after a bit of toing and froing, I was successful in persuading the magistrate not to record a conviction. So again, no loss of licence, fine only, no conviction recorded. My client's very happy. I'm Andrew Wiseman. Thanks for watching.