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Alcohol
Interlocks
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Interlock
Conditions
Interlock
devices are breath test
machines hard wired onto the
ignition system of your
vehicle. They will not allow
the vehicle to start unless a
0.00% breath sample is
provided.
For
people found guilty of drink
driving with a reading of
0.07% or more, or for a
subsequent drink driving
offence, a Magistrate has
power to make it a condition
of your new licence that your
vehicle is fitted with an
alcohol interlock device, at
your cost. This means you are
licensed to drive a motor
vehicle provided it has an
authorised interlock device
installed in it.
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Interlock
Periods
for offences committed since
10.10.2006
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Your
latest
reading
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1st
offence
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2nd
offence
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3
or more
offences
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Under
0.07%
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No
Interlock
applicable
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At least 12
months
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At least 4
years
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0.07%
to 0.15%
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P-Platers:
at least 6 months.*
Under 26 y.o.: at least 6
months*
All Others: Discretionery 6
months.
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0.15%
or more,
Refusals.
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At least 6
months
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At least 4
years
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*
Asterixed provisions apply to offences
committed after 1 January 2007
only.
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Interlock
Periods for offences committed between 13.5.2002 and
10.10.2006
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Your
latest
reading
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1st
Offence
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2nd
Offence
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3
or more
offences
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Under
0.15%
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No
interlocks
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At least 6
months
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At least 3
years
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0.15%
or more, Refusals
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Optional 6
months
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At least 3
years
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There is no Interlock condition possible if your most recent offence was committed prior to 13 May 2002.
First time
offenders
If your reading is under
0.07% (e.g. P platers who are 0.055%) you will not be eligible for an
interlock condition. Full licence holders over 26 years of age at the
time of their
application who have a reading between 0.07% and
0.15% are subject to discretionery interlocks, which means the
magistrate has the choice whether or not to impose an interlock
condition. All other first time offenders must be subject to a
mandatory interlock condition if they are relicensed.
Repeat
offenders
The court must impose an
interlock condition on your licence if you have been found guilty of
two or more drink driving related offences in the period of ten years
prior to the date on which you make your application for licence
restoration (i.e. if your most recent drink driving offence is not your
first drink driving offence in the past 10 years).
The date you were found guilty of drink driving
is the relevant date in determining whether or not the prior offence
will be counted. If
a prior finding of guilt is recorded more than 10 years prior to the
date of your relicensing application, then that offence must be
disregarded and it will not count as a prior offence.
If your licence was cancelled because of an Infringement Notice, the
relevant date is 28 days after the date of the infringement notice. If
your licence was cancelled by a court, the relevant date is the date
the court found you guilty of the drink driving offence, even if
sentencing was adjourned to a later date.
If you make a relicencing application within 10
years of the relevant date, the prior offence must be counted and the
above tables will apply. The date of your application is the date you
appear before the Magistrate - or the Judge in an appeal - and request
the court to make the licence restoration order, not the date that you
file the notice of intention to apply for relicensing. Sometimes it is
prudent to delay making your application for re-licencing if the
passing of time will see an old offence become more than 10 years old.
In April 2008 I saw an application for
relicencing where the applicant had committed two offences within a
month of each other in 2006. The Magistrate treated one of those
offences as a second offence and proceded to impose a mandatory
interlock condition. That was an error, because a person can not commit
a second offence unless he or she has already been found guilty of the
first offence, which is not possible within a one month period. Each of the two offences should have been treated as
first offences and an interlock should have been optional, not
mandatory. The applicant had a right of appeal, but it can take months
for an appeal to be heard. Meanwhile he has an interlock condition on
his licence.
Who is not
eligible for Interlocks
Interlock
conditions can not be imposed on first time offenders with readings under 0.07%.
Cost
There are several providers of
interlocks and they set their own fees.
Typically there is an installation fee,
a monthly service fee and a removal
fee. Expect about $130+ per
month.
Interlock
removal
When your minimum period
of interlock has passed, you can make
an application to the court to have the
interlock condition removed from your
licence. You need to give the police
and the court 28 days notice of your
application, so go to the court 28 days
prior to the end of your minimum
interlock period. A fee applies. You
will need to go through another
assessment and report much like the one
you went through to get your licence
restoration order (which is undertaken
by the same type of people).
The law requires you to have a car and
have an interlock installed for at least 6 months. It does not require you to drive it. If
you have an interlock condition on your licence for 3 years, you do not
need to have the interlock installed for the entire 3 year period. A
court can remove an interlock condition after the 3 year period has
ended provided you have actually used the interlock for at least 6
months. So, you could choose not to drive at all for the first 30
months and then drive with an interlock installed for the last 6 months
only.
When you go to
court for the interlock removal
application, the court will receive a
report including a print-out of every time the interlock
was used. If the magistrate finds that
you attempted to use the vehicle whilst
in excess of 0.000%, your application
will very likely fail. That is because
you are on a zero limit and you need to
prove that you are capable of complying
with a zero condition before the
interlock will be removed. The
magistrate will likely tell you to come
back in 6 months if you have any
positive results on the interlock report.
Zero
Condition
All people who
have an interlock condition on their
licence are subject to a 0.00%
prescribed alcohol limit for a period
of 3 years from the date they are given
permission to be relicenced, or for the
duration of the interlock period,
whichever is longer.
Interlock Offences
If you drive a vehicle prior
to getting permission to be relicenced, you will be charged with
driving whilst unlicensed and you risk getting a further period of
licence cancellation.
If you have an interlock
condition on your licence and you drive a vehicle not fitted with an
interlock, or you drive with an interlock that has been tampered with,
you will be charged with driving in breach of an interlock condition.
This carries maxiumum penalties of $3500 and 4 months
imprisonment, optional licence loss and optional vehicle
immobilisation for up to 12 months.
Legal
Assistance: Most applicants can complete all the relicencing steps without the need to engage a
lawyer. However, some cases are exceptional and can benefit from
legal assistance. If you fail in your application to be
relicenced, or fail to have an interlock removed, or desire to avoid
having an interlock fitted, you may wish to seek legal assistance.
You have 28 days to appeal
against any decision to impose an interlock condition on your licence.
You lodge an appeal by attending at any Magistrates Court and signing a
notice of appeal. An appeal is heard in the County Court and is a full
re-hearing of the licence restproation application. It is wise to get
legal prepresentation if you are considering an appeal.
Expect to pay between $750 and $1300 to have a lawyer handle a licence
restoration application and a little more for an appeal.
Problems
with current Interlock
laws
Victorian legislation requires the
court to make it a condition of being
relicensed (if you fall within the
above circumstances) that the person
not drive a motor vehicle unless it is
fitted with an Interlock. The
legislation (s.50AAA
- 50AAH Road Safety Act)
does not require the person to install
an Interlock on any vehicle. The
legislation does not require a person
to own a car or to install an interlock
on any car. Therefore if you don't own
a car you would think that you simply
can not drive any vehicle while your
licence is subject to an i condition.
So if you have a 6 month interlock
condition and no one will let you put
an interlock on their car, you won't be
able to drive unless you buy a car and
put an interlock on it. The rules of
interlock use require that no one else
use your interlock. If I let you put an
interlock on my car, then I would not
be able to drive the car. If I am
allowed to drive with a BAC of 0.04%,
then the Interlock would stop me from
using my own car. Also, it would record
a positive result which would be
attributed to the person with the
i-condition, and which would be
recorded and brought up in court to
stop that person having the interlock
removed at the end of the 6 month
period. When a person wants to have an
interlock condition removed from their
licence, they have to make an
application to the court. S.50AAB(5)
Road Safety Act obliges the person to
obtain a report from an interlock
supplier and requires the court to take
into account that report. The report
must:
cover
all of the period, being at least 6
months, since an approved alcohol
interlock was installed by an
approved alcohol interlock supplier
in a motor vehicle driven by the
person during that period; and
includes an assessment by each
approved alcohol interlock supplier
who maintained or authorised a
person or body to maintain the
approved alcohol interlock during
that period on the extent to which
the person complied with the
manufacturer's instructions for
using the approved alcohol
interlock.
So in order to get an interlock
condition removed, the person must have
an interlock installed on a vehicle for
at least 6 months. Parliament tells the
court not to remove the interlock
condition unless you get a satisfactory
report. If you do not own a car, you
have no ability to have an interlock
installed. So parliament seems to be
saying that you can not get your
licence back unless you buy your own
vehicle, install an interlock in it,
and don't let anyone else drive it. If
you hope to drive someone else's car
then you may never be able to drive
again. If you drive taxis for a living
and do not own your own taxi, then you
may never get a chance to work as a
driver again. With an interlock
condition you can not hire a car,
participate in car-sharing, or drive
your employer's vehicles. These issues
will not affect you if you are rich
enough to own your own car and ignore the detrimental
environmental consequences that flow from
personal car ownership. On the one hand
the Federal government is encouraging a
reduction in car ownership by promoting car-sharing, while the State government requires people to have Interlocks that make car-sharing impossible.
If you are finding it difficult to
get an interlock condition removed
because you do not own a car, then you
should seek legal advice as these
difficulties might be able to be overcome.
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