High Range DUI Drink Driving With Collision

I recently flew from Brisbane to Blackwater to represent a client charged with repeat High Range Drink Driving with a collision.

The client rolled his vehicle 3 times.

Fortunately nobody else was involved and the client was not hurt, although his $70000 Landcruiser was written off.

The client faced a very high risk of imprisonment, on account of the seriousness of the matter, as well as his previous offending.

We service the entire state of Queensland, despite being based in Brisbane.

When I attend regional courts I like to film episodes of our YouTube series 'Wiseman Lawyers Ride Alongs'.

I do this partly to show potential clients such as yourself what it is exactly that we do, and partly to prove that we do and will literally go anywhere in Queensland.

I can get a 6am flight out of Brisbane and be standing on the steps of court at Moranbah for example at 8:30am waiting for the doors to open, and ten be back in Brisbane in time for lunch.

Please find the YouTube episodie below, along with a transcript for your convenience.

Regards

Andrew Wiseman

Ph: 1300947352 Email:  andrew.wiseman@wisemanlawyers.com.au

RIDE ALONG:

Join Wiseman Lawyers Principal Solicitor Andrew Wiseman as he drives to Blackwater Magistrates Court. On the way to court, Andrew discusses his court matter for the day. On the way back to the airport, he explains the outcome and how it was achieved

Why not also check out the following epsiodes:

• Careless Driving | Rockhampton Magistrates Court
• Unlicensed Driving | Normanton Magistrates Court
• Drink Driving | Blackwater Magistrates Court

BLACKWATER MAGISTRATES COURT:

Andrew Wiseman represents a client charged with DUI Drink Driving at Blackwater Magistrates Court.

Don't lose your licence, Save Your licence. Do the wise thing. Call Wiseman Lawyers today 1300 947 352 or go to wisemanlawyers.com.au .

I'm Andrew Wiseman and welcome back to Wiseman Lawyers Court Ride Alongs, Blackwater edition.

Does your licence need saving? Do the wise thing. Call Wiseman Lawyers. Does your licence need saving? Do the wise thing. Call the Wiseman Team at Wiseman Lawyers.

Once again, I'm Andrew Wiseman, owner and Principal Solicitor of Wiseman Lawyers, Queensland's only truly dedicated traffic law firm. As I say in every episode, when we say truly dedicated traffic law firm, all we do is Queensland traffic law, prevention, and minimisation of loss of licence. So if it happened in a car and you're either going to lose your licence or go to jail or anything in between, that is all we do. And when I say Queensland, we will not go outside of Queensland, so you'll never see in us at Tweed Heads, but we will literally go to every single court in Queensland. Today I'm at Blackwater, yesterday I was at Brisbane City, the day before that Toowoomba. I'm at Cairns next week, Gladstone the week after that, and Moranbah the week after that.

Okay, the young man who's engaged me today, he's in quite a bit of trouble. He blew .169 before flipping his car and rolling it three times. Fortunately, there was no one else involved in his collision. It was a single vehicle accident, but it's an extremely serious matter nonetheless and while my job is minimising the loss of licence, it's also ensuring that that's all that happens. Meaning that he doesn't go to jail or get any kind of imprisonment term, be it suspended or with immediate parole. So quite a bit of bother, .169, single vehicle accident, but a very serious single vehicle accident. Further compounding this, he's got two previous low-range DUI charges, not within the last five years, but they're still recent enough to be of concern. One was about eight years ago, and the other one nine years ago. So .169, serious single vehicle collision, and two previous DUIs.

So, in a nut shell, you'll remember from previous episodes, there's no maximum disqualification, if the magistrate chooses to, they can hand down a lifetime loss of licence, what is called an absolute loss of licence. If that does occur I'm going to do everything I can to endeavor it doesn't, but if that was to occur we could then, after he served two years, apply to get his licence back early, but that's something for another day. But I don't expect he's going to get a lifetime loss of licence, but that is the worst case scenario and I have seen people in these circumstances with a similar history go into court by himself, or with a lawyer that doesn't specialise in traffic, and there is no one else that legitimately does in Queensland not getting much change out of three years to be frank.

The mandatory minimum is technically six months. There's no way he's going to get six months, because of the circumstances of the offence in question, a serious collision whilst rolling his vehicle three times and his previous. I'm going to be pushing hard for a 12 month disqualification. I'm going to be putting a window of 9 to 12 months to the magistrate, but I know that I'm being ridiculous by asking for that, so I don't seriously expect it to be any less than 12 months, but I'm going to be putting 9 to 12 to the magistrate. If I get the 12, excellent, but as I've said I'm warning my client not to expect anything less than 12 months. And as I've said, if I was asked for anything without giving that window to the magistrate, I'd be screamed out of the court and rightly so.

The primary reason I'm going to be pushing for 9 to 12 months is that he's a plant operator and again he lives in the middle of nowhere, Blackwater. So without a licence, he's not going to be earning any money, he doesn't live in Fortitude Valley and work in the city as a hairdresser. He lives in the middle of nowhere and his role is 100% driver's licence dependent. So it's not like he can make alternative arrangements or catch taxis or buses, without a licence he's losing his job and he is obviously losing his income. As I said, if he was a public servant or something that was not road based, and he lived in a metropolitan area and was able to easily get to work, obviously the hardship that he'd suffer would not be the same as the hardship that my client would be suffering today. And just to be clear, I'm not all about advocating idiot behavior on the road or DUI or anything like that.

I'm completely against it, but what I am here to do is ensure that penalties handed out in an equitable manner and by equitable I mean the real world impact of the penalties being equal. So, as I said, I've used the example of a public servant who lives in a metropolitan area. If someone in that position was to get a two year disqualification, which wouldn't be inappropriate in the circumstances, the real world impact would not be same as the client I've got today.

Obviously, as I said, if a public servant who lives in the city gets a two-year disqualification, they'll manage, whereas if my client today gets a two-year disqualification, the real world outcome would be a gross injustice, and that's why I'm going to be pushing hard to get my client 9 to 12 months. Whereas a person who doesn't require their licence to put food on their children's plates, wouldn't be warranted in seeking such a low outcome. All right, I'm just pulling up to court now, so I'll head on in, and I'll let you know what the outcome was after court. So all right, I'll see you back in the car soon.

Graham of Chinchilla writes, "A huge thank you to Andrew for your exceptional work on my behalf for my DUI case. The result you achieved was sensational to say the least, and the process was extremely comforting the whole way through. The old saying, 'The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten,' certainly rings true here. Both myself and my family are grateful for your effort. Thanks again."

Okay. As I've said before, we're in the business of putting smiles on faces and that's exactly what we've done today. You remember that when I went in, I said I was going to be putting a window of 9 to 12 months to the magistrate but I did stress that I realistically didn't expect to get it any lower than 12 months. And to be blunt, I was being quite silly putting even nine to the magistrate, but as I said I put 9 to 12 months to the magistrate. The magistrate agreed and handed down a 12 month disqualification. So while it wasn't the bottom-end of the window, I did state before I went in that I did not expect to get it down lower than 12, and that 12 months would be a very good outcome given that he was .169, he had that very serious single vehicle collision, he rolled it three times, and he had those two previous low range drink driving.

So again, 12 month disqualification that obviously starts today but fortunately because there was a collision, and because he was hospitalised, there was no breath test, it had to be done by blood sample and given the backlog that the government has in its labs, there is always a delay in getting the result and the police can't suspend the client's licence until they know what the reading is unless they want to charge high range based on behavior but they didn't want to do that for whatever reason. So what I'm getting at is ordinarily if you're high range, you're off the road from the day in question right up to the court date, but because the police didn't have a reading he was given a 24-hour suspension, then he was able to drive up until the court date.

So when I say he got 12 months, that literally starts from today and there was no lead up time between the incident and the court date, so that's good for him. The fine was $1,300 and you'll remember from previous episodes that there's $110 offender levy that goes with it, so $1410 in total, and with my clients I don't even, if people ask me about fines, I say, "Well, mate you know I thought your licence was the key concern, so you really shouldn't care about the fine. There's going to be a fine, but my job is getting the disqualification down, not the fine down." And in fact, a lot of the times I encourage magistrates to give a higher fine in lieu of what would otherwise be a lengthy disqualification. So the fine now is being referred to the State Penalty Enforcement Registry here, so he'll get a letter saying, "Right, this is how much you owe us, but give us $50 a month for example." Yeah, so, 12-month disqualification and a fine, no probation or suspended sentences or anything like that, which is good. Yeah, so again, another smile on another face.

I'm driving now to Emerald, so I'm getting the plane back to Brisbane in time for a massive day in Brisbane City. Tomorrow I've got, wow, by the time I get back to the office Greg will probably have more work for me, but at this stage I've got a drink driving work licence as well as four drink driving pleas of guilty. So yeah, ordinarily we don't do that much work on any given day, but you make hay when the sun shines and we are in a busy period. And with that said, I'll be working until about midnight tonight so each client that I'm acting for tomorrow will get as much of my time and attention as if I was only doing one job. So, yeah, once again, thanks for watching. It's great that you guys could see me, I know I've said it three times already, but put another smile on another face. I should add, this matter was supposed to in December. You might remember me mentioning that during the Toowoomba episode, but given the circumstances, I saw fit to just deal with it early so we did exactly that.

The next episode, unless another job comes up, will be Gladstone, but we also have a Moranbah job coming up as well, so who knows. We take each day as it comes, so either Gladstone or Moranbah, unless we get another job in a regional location that's where the next episode will be. So, once again, thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.

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