When facing the loss of a licence for a drink or drug driving offence, you can apply for a restricted licence (also known as a work licence) if you meet certain criteria. The criteria you must meet is as follows:

• For drink driving charges, your reading must be under 0.15%
• You must have an open licence
• You can’t have lost your licence in the past 5 years for a similar offence or because of an accumulation of demerit points
• You must also need your licence to work — it’s not enough that it’s inconvenient getting to and from work. You have to be able to demonstrate extreme financial hardship if you’re not allowed to drive.

For drug driving charges (driving with relevant drug present in saliva), there’s no percentage to worry about. It’s either in your saliva and you can apply, or you’re charged with being under the influence of a drug, which means you can’t apply.

Special hardship orders act in a similar way to a work licence, but are made in circumstances where you are going to lose your licence because you have accumulated too many demerit points or have breached a good behaviour driving option.

You must have a clean record for the last 5 years and be able to demonstrate extreme hardship if your licence is further suspended.

Your work or special hardship licence allows you to drive during certain hours based on your application to the court. It may contain other conditions such as needing to keep a logbook with details of each journey, wearing or uniform, and restrictions on whether you can carry passengers.

The period you are on this special type of licence can be doubled from what you would receive if you didn’t apply, but that is not always the case. In addition, you will receive a fine from the court, which varies based on your reading and the submissions made by us on your behalf.

We have a 100% success rate in making these applications to the court due to our extensive experience and careful preparation of supporting material for the court. Our initial consultation with you involves gathering as much detail about your personal and work life and preparing detailed affidavits for the court from you (and your employer, if you have one).

If necessary, we supplement this material with certificates of completion of road safety programs such as QTOP to demonstrate your understanding of the impact of your offending, and obtain collateral supporting material depending on our assessment of your case.

With George Criminal Lawyers on your side, you can rest assured that you can carry on with your life and not have the loss of your licence turn your world upside down.