#154 Brisbane Drink Driving

Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Brisbane Magistrates Court as he represents a client charged with Drink Driving. Watch Andrew explain what happened in the courtroom, along with the outcome which he achieved and how he achieved it.

All right. Today I'm at Brisbane magistrates court. Client was charged with high range drink driving, reading at 0.27, so more than four times the legal limit. Further to that, she was in a collision. So basically she's drifted, and hit a guard rail, and destroyed her car and part of the barrier. So yeah, high range drink driving, reading a 0.217, and single vehicle accident so it was quite a serious matter. High range drink driving, a couple of things. You cannot get a work licence. So when your reading hits 0.150, work licence is just not an option. If you're .149 and below, and you meet certain other criteria, then yes, you are eligible to apply for a DUI drink driving work licence, but high range, .15 and above, it's just not an option.

So as a starting point, my client was not eligible to apply for a DUI drink driving work licence. And my job was, therefore, one of getting the disqualification down as low as possible, as opposed to maintaining your ability to drive on the road during a disqualification, which can be done when you are eligible and successful in applying for a DUI drink driving work licence. Penalty's worst case is a lifetime loss of licence. Magistrate's got a discretion to do that. So worst case is lifetime. Managing minimum, absolute best case when you hit 0.15 is six months, but when you're well into the twos, which my client was with 0.217, if I go in a court asking for six months for a reading of that nature, A I'll get screamed out the courtroom, and B the pendulum will over correct and the client will be demolished metaphorically speaking, obviously.

So realistically, when we've got clients approaching us with readings starting with two and above, our goal is to get it under 12 months. So if you go there by yourself with the lawyer that doesn't know what they're doing, or doesn't specialise in traffic. So that's the thing with traffic law, it seems core like narrow, oh, your drink driving, drug driving, demerit points, suspensions. How hard can it be? But it's a chasm on the Antarctic ice. It's just a little crack, but it just goes down, and it trips a lot of lawyers up who do the old, well, I'll have a crack thing. It's a very deep and complicated set of laws. I don't know why they're deep and complicated, but they just are. And it trips a lot of non-lawyers up, and trips a lot of lawyers up, but in any event I'm going off point.

But what I'm getting at is if you go there by yourself with someone that doesn't specialise in traffic law, and someone who speaks like Michael Jackson at court, you won't get much change out of 18 months, sometimes two years. As I said, we tell clients with the two in front of their reading, that we'll go our hardest to get it down as low as possible. If we can get it under 12 months, that's a good outcome. If we can get it lower than that, it's a bonus. So prior to today, we made it clear to the client that the goal is get it under 12.

They were happy with that. And obviously 12 was a lot better than what you otherwise might get if you didn't pull out all stops to try and suffocate the outcome. Just smother it with a fire blanket, which is what basically what we do. Identify the spot fires, smother him, shake the moving oxygen, and all that's left is a notional penalty, and people are happy. In any event, prior to today, we got instructions from the client, got her to complete the reformatory course we get all of our clients to do. Got her to get references, basically templates we give all of our clients to give to their referees. Draught them a submissions prior to today, met the client at court, grabbed the conference room, ran through what I was going to say, what we could anticipate the prosecutor to say, and the likely responses from the magistrate. Given my clients pretty much complete lack of history, there was certainly no drink or drug driving in the history. There was really only one ticket, a single demerit point infringement. And that was it.

She actually done the course, so I had a lot to work with as far as positives go. So I got a bit cheeky and went low, fully expecting the magistrate to look at me over their glasses, and do the whole, what are you playing at Wiseman? But I thought, no, look, it's a Friday, the sun's out. I'm feeling good, clients a lovely lady, I'll just go hard and see what happens. So as a starting point, I just went hard at eight to 10. I was never going to ask for six because as I said, you'd be screaming out of the courtroom and you'd end up with 18 months. But eight to 10, keeping in mind, we're talking 0.217, ordinarily we consider an outcome of 12 months and below to be a good outcome, but on a whim, I just thought stuff it, I'll go hard for eight to 10. I lead with the fact that she'd done the course, and labelled the fact that it's likely that she's the only one in the courtroom who's actually done it.

Laboured the lack of history, laboured the words of her referees, et cetera. And again, even when I made that submission, the magistrate did raise their eyes and goes oh eight to 10 you reckon Mr. Wiseman? And I didn't just say yes, your honour, I spoke further, but further trying to fortify the position. Yes. Even I'll admit that I was going in low, and in any event, that's what I'm here for. I'm prattling on now, but long and short of it is, I was successful in getting a 10 month disqualification my client. So 10 months, keeping in mind that's for a reading a 0.217 with collision. 10 months disqualification, that's very good in my mind. Client's very happy.

So she's off the road for 10 months, modest fine. In 10 months she'll take the steps she needs to get a licence back, and it'll be behind her. So she's very happy. I'm Andrew Wiseman at Brisbane magistrates court. Thanks for watching.