Drink Driving and Traffic Offence Lawyers, Brisbane
For most people charged with drink driving the fine is not the problem. Losing the licence is the problem — and what can be done about it is decided at the hearing, not afterwards.
A Queensland drink driving charge is dealt with in the Magistrates Court, and a conviction carries a mandatory minimum period of licence disqualification. Whether you can keep driving turns on your reading, your licence class and your traffic history — and on a work licence application made at the sentencing hearing, because it cannot be made once you have already been disqualified.
The three alcohol ranges, and why the number matters
Queensland does not treat every drink driving charge alike. The general alcohol limit is a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05. Above it, a charge falls into one of three bands — the general range, the middle range, and the high range, which is charged as driving under the influence of liquor. Each band carries its own mandatory minimum disqualification period, and the bands are separated by fractions of a decimal point.
A separate rule catches a large group of drivers. If you hold a learner, P1 or P2 licence, or you are driving a truck, bus, taxi, rideshare or other prescribed vehicle, your limit is zero. A reading that would be a minor matter for a fully licensed private driver is a charge in its own right for a provisional driver.
Police can also suspend a licence immediately at the roadside in some circumstances, including high range readings and repeat offences. That means you may be off the road well before any court date. If it has happened to you, a separate and time-critical application governs whether you can drive at all in the meantime.
Whether you can keep driving
There are two different applications and they are routinely confused. A work licence — properly, a restricted licence — is applied for at the hearing where you are sentenced for drink driving, and if granted permits driving for work purposes during the disqualification. A special hardship order is a different remedy, for drivers facing suspension through accumulated demerit points or a speeding suspension rather than a drink driving conviction.
Eligibility for a work licence is genuinely narrow. Broadly it is unavailable for high range readings, unavailable if you were driving for work at the time of the offence, and unavailable if you were not on an open Queensland licence or have a recent drink driving history. Because the criteria are cumulative, the honest answer in a first conversation is often that we need the charge, your licence class and your certified traffic history before saying whether the application is viable at all.
The timing point matters more than anything else on this page. The application is made in the same proceeding in which you are sentenced. Once you have pleaded guilty and been disqualified, the opportunity is gone — there is no later application to restore it.
Disqualification periods, fine amounts and interlock requirements are set by legislation and have changed more than once. They are deliberately not reproduced here. Confirm the current figures against the Queensland Government source before relying on them. See sources 1–3.
Drug driving is a different charge
Queensland has two distinct drug driving offences and the difference is significant. Driving with a relevant drug present in saliva or blood requires only that the drug be detected; it does not require any proof that your driving was affected. Driving under the influence of a drug is the more serious charge and does require evidence of impairment.
The practical consequence is that a person can be charged with the presence offence days after using a substance, when they are in no sense affected by it. That is a defensible position, but it is defended on the detail of the testing process rather than on how you felt at the time.
The interlock program
Drivers convicted of high range drink driving, repeat offences, or failing to provide a specimen are generally required, once their disqualification ends, to spend a period driving only vehicles fitted with an alcohol ignition interlock. The device requires a breath sample before the vehicle will start, and the cost of installation and monitoring falls on the driver.
This is worth understanding before you plead. It is a consequence that continues well past the disqualification period, and it is not discretionary once the conviction is entered.