DUI Without a License in Howard County
A person can face serious consequences if they are charged with a DUI without having a license in Howard County. There are several additional charges someone can receive if they are driving without a license or driving on a suspended license. Since there are severe consequences, it is important that someone consults an experienced drunk driving attorney quickly after they are charged.
If you facing driving under the influence charges and were pulled over without a license, you may face serious consequences. Depending on the circumstances, there are typically three common scenarios. It is critical that you obtain a lawyer to ensure the best possible outcome.
Additional Charges
If someone is charged with a DUI without a license in Howard County, their case will be impacted by an additional charge. Driving without a license carries up to 60 days incarceration, therefore, in addition to the criminal charge and jail sanctions that a person could suffer for the DUI charge, they now are exposing themselves to additional incarceration by virtue of the fact that they are unlicensed. There may traffic charges in addition to the drunk driving charges.
Aggravating Factors
Driving without a license in Howard County is not so much that it is an aggravating charge to the DUI, it is more going to anger the judge. Not only is somebody drinking and getting behind the wheel, but it is the same effect as drinking and driving underage because of both, together, they are criminal. Kind of like being underage, one of the basic behaviors are not permitted at all regardless of whether the person was drinking, but in a juvenile sense a person cannot drink, but they can drive. Here, the person can not drive but they can drink.
Driving on a Suspended License
There is a subcategory with driving while suspended because driving while suspended, there are two varieties. There is the variety where it is an administrative suspension and there is a variety where it is a more substantial suspension. For example, administrative is someone did not pay a seatbelt ticket or someone did not do an emissions test. In that situation, the person was suspended because of an administrative sanction or something not really related to the actual driving ability, however, if somebody is suspended because they got too many points or because they were involved in a hit and run, they got points or they got a DUI and lost their license, that is a far more serious type of suspension and then that is why it is going to be treated differently.
Of the three categories, the worst-case scenario is someone driving while suspended for a safety issue such as a DUI or points. Then a little less severe is someone driving without a license and probably the best of those three, a preferable one to be in if a person is a driver as if they were just was suspended for an administrative purpose that is seen as the least offensive of those three scenarios.