Quote: (03-07-2013 04:03 AM)porscheguy Wrote:
The back of my MD driver's license states "driving in MD implies consent to chemical testing for intoxication as required by law. Longer license suspension may result from refusal to be tested."
Does your friend still have a proper driver's license? If this happened in MD, your friend would have a paper license and the cops would have done a test that provided a BAC.
If the person charged has a license from a state other than Maryland, the police do not take the person's license. Regardless of the state in which the driver is licensed and even if the driver does not have a driver's license, the police issue this "paper license" which porscheguy is referring to. This paper license is known as a DR15-A form, not to be confused with the DR-15 form, which is the advice of rights. Even if you have a license which was issued in a jurisdiction other than Maryland, the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration can suspend your privelige to drive in the State of Maryland as a result of an alcohol related traffic offense. When a person is charged with an alcohol-related traffic offense, he is given two copies of the DR-15A form. One copy is to serve as the temporary license. The other copy is a hearing request form which is to be mailed to the Office of Adminstrative Hearings. The hearing request copy must be mailed within thirty days of the charge or the driver's license or priviledge (whichever applies) will be suspended. If the hearing request is timely mailed, any suspension will he held in abeyence until the Motor Vehicle Adminstration conducts a hearing.
At the hearing, for a first offense between a .08 but less than .15, the suspension is for forty-five days, .15 or over is for ninety days, and a refusal of the chemical test is for 120 days. One defense to the suspension is that the driver wasn't properly advised of the administrative sanctions which could be imposed. The DR-15, Advice of Rights Form was previously only written in English and persons who did not read English fluently sometimes were able to be successful in those cases. A recent development is that there is now a complete Spanish translation of the DR-15, Advice of Rights form. I won't comment about what persons or events may have caused them to create the written translation. I think you guys can read between the lines.
Many, many people don't realize that the hearing request must be promptly mailed and therefore do nothing with regard to the request, do not consult attorneys, and have their licenses suspended.