Drink Driving High Risk Offenders: The Rules and Consequences

If you are convicted with numerous and / or notably serious drink driving offences, you will be most likely considered a High Risk Offender (HRO). The list of offences that would attract such a title includes attempting to drive with excess alcohol in your blood, ‘being in charge’ of a vehicle while unfit through drink or even failing to provide a specimen for analysis (either breath, blood or urine). Yes, that does mean even if you think you are being a responsible road user and napping in your car until some of the alcohol seeps out from your pores (lovely!) and you start to feel a little more stable than you did rolling out of the pub a few hours ago; you are still technically in charge of that vehicle and can be prosecuted.

If you’re placed on the scheme and are a first time offender, this means you were found to have driven with an alcohol reading of over 87.5 microgrammes of alcohol per 100ml in breath (35 being the limit!) OR 200 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood (limit being 80!) OR over 267 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of urine (107 is the legal limit here!)

The authorities will also charge those who have been disqualified two or more times, within a period of ten years for drink driving offences. Officially, statistics tell the story that more than 8,000 of us regular Brits got caught out by the law on this point within the past 5 years!

Under the HRO scheme, those of you who wish to return to the roads will need to jump through the DVLA ‘fitness to drive’ hoop and undergo a medical examination. In addition to this, you will also need to pay an additional fee to the DVLA for the application to recover you licence (as if you didn’t have enough of a headache already, ey?)

And before you think that your long-time buddy who runs the local GP surgery can assist you in trying to get the licence back – think again! The law states that you cannot gain your licence back until Government appointed doctors clear you and are satisfied that you are medically fit and competent to drive. This will include a full medical assessment and blood test. And to make your life even more complicated than it is already – there are numerous forms which need be filled out at certain junctions during this process. Adding further insult to injury for you, the vehicle type will also play a factor here as there are different criteria for regaining your licence (i.e. motorcycles vs buses).

This does effectively mean, even though your ban period may be over, (yay!) you must NOT return to the roads until you pass your full medical exam as you may be finding yourself in further legal trouble and even facing a possible prison sentence.

Doctors will use the Carbohydrate Deficient Transferrin test (aka. CDT) to assess whether you’re a high-risk offender or not.

Not only will your future insurance go up significantly, it can significantly impede that holiday you were so looking forward to going on to the United States (and other countries, by the way!). The implications for the rest of your working and family life runs far deeper. Not only will you probably be wrestling with commuting on uncomfortable public transport to work, (if you still have your job, that is) your personal finances will be sure to take a significant hit after all the medical and legal bills. And if you were unfortunate enough to lose your job, because you know, your licence depended on it – then you’ll be joining the 5% of unemployed Brits in 2017 (not a particularly glamourous look if you ask us!).