What Are The Increased Penalties For A High BAC DUI?

Welcome to our video today. What are the increased penalties for a high blood alcohol concentration for a DUI under our Criminal Code in Canada? Great question. I’m going to review the mandatory minimums first of all with you today.

So the charge is 80 or over milligrams of alcohol in 100mls of blood. So first of all, if a person’s blood sample is between 80 and 119, the mandatory minimums the $1,000 fine in terms of the fine. If it’s between 120 and 159, the mandatory minimum is $1,500. And of course for aggravated levels over 160, 160 or over I should say, the mandatory minimum is $2000. Now bear in mind that’s the mandatory minimum the fines can go up from there depending on other aggravating factors like an accident or things like that, coupled with those BAC readings. So that’s very important. And there’s also situations of course, where a person could face a jail term. Let’s take a high BAC reading even by itself. I’ve seen situations of clients blowing, say 400, some people are dead at those levels are close to it, who can wind up in jail and you can also they have a probation tacked on where they have to report to a probation officer and be under probationary terms for a year. Now the mandatory minimum our first offence for these at any level of reading, for a first offence one year driving prohibition. The Ministry of transport also takes your license for the same one year. Now, you might be able to get ignition interlock, but that’s a topic for another video that I’ve done. So there you have it with respect to that. It’s interesting because you have to assess each case and negotiate this with the crown. Don’t think you’re just going to get the mandatory minimums though which is going not to be the situation. You know, if you couple for example, even a low reading if a child is in the car, you’re probably facing a jail term, maybe not with negotiation, but that’s a tough thing to negotiate out of. And with high readings coupled with an accident definitely facing jail term. A high readings accident on a major 401 series highway that’s looking at a shorter jail term. Even driving on a 401 series highway with a high reading you could be looking at a jail term. So there’s not only mandatory minimum fines you have to look at each factual situation to see where it is in the continuum as to whether you can avoid a jail term and oftentimes a good criminal lawyer can do that if not win your case for you.