Can Your Driver’s License Be Suspended For Life?

Can your driver’s license be suspended for life? That’s a really important question. I want to give you some examples, and let’s take Ontario. So, let’s say you plead guilty today to impaired driving, and let’s say this is your, actually your third conviction, within the last 10 years, just as an example. Okay. So, what can the judge do? Well, the judge is a third conviction. So, the judge can take your license from anywhere from three years up to a lifetime on the driving prohibition. They probably won’t take it for lifetime in that scenario. But for a person who has, because there’s discretion on the judge’s part, but for a person who has a whole multiple convictions going back years, they could take it for a lifetime. If a person was pleaded guilty to impaired causing death, for example, pretty serious impaired causing death, they could take it for life as well. Now the Ministry of Transportation has license suspensions, which run concurrently, meaning at the same time they have a totally separate scheme. And what the Ministry does is this, so if you have a first time DUI and the judge prohibits here for one year, the Ministry is automatically don’t take your license for the same one year. By the way, it runs concurrently. If the judge, if you have got a second prior conviction. In other words, you plead guilty today and you’ve got one prior DUI conviction. The judge can take it from a minimum of two years, two to five years. Okay. Now the Ministry is going to automatically take it for three. So, if the judge takes it for three, the Ministry takes it for three, they run concurrently. But the judge can take it for longer. They can take it for up to five, your license on a prohibition. Now, the third thing with the Ministry is this, third and fourth thing I’ll get to, so, and this is very important point for you people who have prior convictions. So, if it’s your third DUI conviction, okay, so the judges could prohibit you, say, for, I don’t know, three years, just as an example. Now here’s the kicker. What the Ministry is going to do is this, and I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you have two prior convictions within the last 10 years. The Ministry is going to take your license, believe it or not, for life. It’s going to be reviewable after 10 years. But what that means is that you’ll have to show rehabilitation. You may not get it back. You’re going to have to go through all sorts of hoops and bells and whistles to be able to convince the Ministry to get it back after 10 years. Now here’s the other kicker, for those of you have multiple priors, so if you if it’s your fourth DUI conviction, so you plead guilty today and you’ve got three priors within the last 10 years. As an example, the Ministry is going to take it for life. There’s no review you’re done. But the important thing to understand about the Ministry of Transportation is this, they only search back 10 years. So if your conviction, if you plead guilty today, and your last conviction for a DUI was 10 years plus one day. The Ministry is only going to take it for one year. Now, the judge might take it for longer. So that’s a very important point that I made another video. Some people have made this terrible mistake. They get charged today with a DUI, and let’s say they had a prior nine years six months ago. It’s very important, if you decide to plead guilty, to let some time go by and get past that 10 year limitation period. So crucial, if you don’t, you’re is considered a second, third or fourth, you may lose for life. So you have multiple so 10 year limitation very period, they only search back 10 years. The other thing about the Ministry, and I’ll give you this example, so let’s say you have a DUI conviction today in court sentence the judge takes it for three years as an example. You’ve got a prior nine years before that, and you’ve got a prior nine years before that other one. Well, there’s a third offence because there’s less than 10 years between each prior. So that’s, that’s a lifetime suspension, reviewable after 10 years. So, you’ve got to be very careful with these limitation periods when you’re timing your guilty plea. Some lawyers, for example, will set the matter again over trial to buy time, and then, you know, bring it forward and plead guilty after the 10-year limitation periods has expired. Okay.  Now, in the same example I just gave you, where you pleaded guilty today, you have a prior nine years before that the other prior is over 10 years before the other prior, then that’s only considered a second. So, they have to be within 10 years of each other. Very important to consider. And your lawyers got to go through this carefully and know the law very carefully. But there’s very serious suspensions, and you could when you have multiple, multiple convictions, a judge can take it for life. And the Ministry of Transportation, if you’re within those limitation periods, they will take it for life, either reviewable after 10 years or absolute lifetime if it’s your fourth conviction, and it is in the limitation period. I know it sounds complicated, but just remember that 10-year limitation period. And just remember as well that the judge can do different things in the Ministry, but the suspensions run at the same time. So sometimes the judge’s suspension will be longer than Ministry. Sometimes the Ministry suspension will be longer than the judges.