Given this, why would anyone refuse a BAC test? Findings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show that those who refused received higher fines and longer jail terms. New Hampshire residents refused more than any other state's drivers: Almost one-quarter (22.4 percent) who were arrested refused to submit to a BAC test. I have no idea why New Hampshire residents show such poor legal judgment.
There are four possible DWI/DUI charges. Which one you are charged with, and the penalty, will be indicated on your Complaint. The most basic charge, DUI, is classified as a class B misdemeanor and a crime. Although you cannot go to jail for a simple first-offense DUI conviction, both DUI 2nd offense and aggravated DUI each carry the possibility of a year in jail. If you are charged with felony aggravated DUI based on serious bodily injury (including to yourself), you face up to seven years in prison; a fourth-offense DUI is also a felony.
A regular, first-offense DUI conviction is punishable by a fine of between $500.00 and $1,200.00, plus a standard penalty assessment of 20% of the amount of the fine, and a mandatory minimum license loss of ninety days, with a maximum loss of two years. The minimum license loss that the Court may impose is nine months, but six months of that period may be suspended by the Court if you enter into a mandatory alcohol treatment program within forty-five days of the date of your conviction.
In certain unusual circumstance such as having a prior DUI on your record within the last ten years (even though you are not formally charged with DUI, 2nd offense), you face substantially higher minimum penalties plus a seven-day residential treatment program. If you are under twenty-one years of age at the time of the offense, you face a minimum revocation of one year, and if you are under twenty, in addition to the one year minimum imposed by the Court, you face and additional loss that can vary from twenty to ninety days, depending on your prior record.
Upon conviction of any DUI offense, you also must complete a state-approved DUI training course prior to restoration of your license or operating privilege. For a first offense DUI, you must attend and complete a state-approved 20-hour program and any recommended aftercare, including attendance at AA and/or further alcohol treatment. Some of these programs meet in the evening, some on weekends. This state-approved program is called an Impaired Driver Intervention Program, or IDIP.
Again, if this is your first DUI offense, and you complete an IDIP program, your criminal court license suspension will be reduced from nine months to three months...in theory. It turns out that though the IDIP program is only 20 hours, the aftercare that is assigned usually ends up being longer than the original nine month non-reduced suspension.
Oh, and you'll end up paying $460 for the IDIP program and hundreds for assigned aftercare.
My next post will be about the Alcohol Treatment Centers that run IDIP programs. The people who run them are, in general, stupid, incompetent, former alcoholics, now turned fundamentalist Christians via Alcoholics Anonymous. They will teach you that you are powerless to your disease of alcoholism and that the only cure is through God.
Welcome my friend, welcome to the machine.
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