How To Fight Your IRP or ADP Driving Prohibition

How to fight your IRP or ADP driving prohibition? IRP lawyer vancouver

If you have been served with Notice of Driving Prohibition for an Immediate Roadside Prohibition (IRP) or Administrative Driving Prohibition (ADP) then you should IMMEDIATELY SEEK LEGAL ADVICE REGARDING SAME.   If you receive one of these driving prohibition then you will remain “prohibited” or will be “prohibited” in the future  (in the case of ADPs) if simply do nothing.  There are rules for appealing these driving prohibitions that involve strict time limits that apply that act to restrict your ability to actually contest them.  In order to contest your Immediate Roadside Prohibition (IRP) or Administrative Driving Prohibition (ADP) you do not have to hire a lawyer to fight it and you CAN do it yourself.  However BE WARNED the arguments to be presented in appeals of IRPs or ADPs can be are very very complicated and usually require the preparation and forwarding of very detailed statements from witnesses and the possible preparation and forwarding possibly expert reports or other relevant information in order for you to have any good chance at success.  Our lawyer, Jamie Butler, has performed hundreds of these types of reviews.  He can be retained to perform the review from beginning to end for you.  He has had lots of success in previous appeals for clients who have faced lengthy and troubling driving prohibitions.  You can call our driving prohibition lawyer 24 hours a day, 7 days at week for advice at 604-318-3838.

a. The process of launching an appeal of your IRP or ADP driving prohibition
b. Application to Review a Driving Prohibition
c. Advanced preparation for the IRP appeal or ADP appeal
d. The oral appeal itself

The process of launching an appeal of your IRP or ADP driving prohibition

The process for launching an appeal is really quite simple.  If you are reading this you now you will most likely have already had your actual physical driver’s permit card with your picture on it seized by the police and you will have already been served by the police with a document entitled a “Notice of Driving Prohibition“.  For either an ADP driving prohibition or an IRP driving prohibition he Notice of Driving Prohibition document is what commences the driving prohibition.  In the case of an ADP only that document also replaces your physical driver’s permit and effectively serves as your physical driver’s license for 20 days after its service upon you.  (Remember in an ADP situation as opposed to an IRP situation, after the 24 hour prohibition expires the Notice of Driving Prohibition permits you to continue driving for a period of 20 days after service of the Notice of Driving Prohibition and after your 24 hour prohibition has expired) .  In the case of an IRP that document does NOT serve as your driver’s license as you are aleady immediately prohibited and there is no “grace period” under which you can still drive).

So, if you have been served with an Notice of Driving Prohibition under either section 94.1 of the Motor Vehicle Act (for an ADP) OR section 215.41 of the Motor Vehicle Act (for an IRP) in order to appeal the driving prohibition all you need to do is to attend to the Motor Vehicle Branch or an ICBC Driver’s Services Center (ie. where you apply for your driver’s license and pay fines) and pay an application fee and fill out and submit a form called an “Application to Review a Driving Prohibition” and that will have the effect of commencing your appeal.  NOTE that the filling out and filing of the form does not itself STAY or RELIEVE you of any driving prohibition it merely commences the reviewing process.

The form for reviewing (or appealing) a 90 day driving prohibition (available at the Driver’s Services Centre) is not complicated to fill out.  But the form initiating the review/appeal MUST BE FILLED OUT AND DELIVERED/FILED at the Driver’s Services Centre within SEVEN (7) DAYS of being served the “Notice of Driving Prohibition” in order to commence your review under either section 94.6 of the Motor Vehicle Act (for ADPs or section 241.48 of the Motor Vehicle Act (for IRPs).  The 7 day deadline for filling out and submitting (filing) this form to the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles (through their agent at the Drivers Services Center)  is usually (though NOT always) within 7 days of your first initial dealings with the police or your actual impaired driving incident (by law technically it is actually 7 days from the date of service of the Notice to Prohibit).   If you do not compete and deliver this form within this 7 day requirement you may actually be barred from appealing the prohibition. (**  NOTE: there are still steps that you can take to extend the 7 day time limit but you should seek legal advice to find out how this should/can be done).

Application to Review a Driving Prohibition

The document that you will fill out at the Driver’s Services Center to appeal the 90 day driving prohibition is called an “Application to Review a Driving Prohibition” and a copy can be found online.

  • Written hearing or Oral Review

At the time that you submit your application you will be asked whether you want an oral hearing or a written review.  Our lawyer usually prefers to have an oral hearing.  The reason is quite simple:  in an oral hearing you can submit written materials in advance of the oral  hearing (thus, in effect giving you the benefit of written submissions if you choose) BUT in a written review hearing you are simply left with written submissions.

  • Disclosure requests to be faxed or picked up

At the time that you submit your application you will be asked how you would like the disclosure delivered to you.  You have two choices:  (a) BY FAX or (b) by PICKUP.  (The Superintendent of Motor Vehicle will not allow disclosure by email).  Our fax number is 604-739-9888.  We prefer to have the disclosure materials faxed directly to our office.   But you should ONLY use our fax number on the application form if you have pre-arranged that with our lawyer, Jamie Butler in advance.

  • Telephone number to contact for the review

At the time that you submit your application, if the review is to be an ORAL review you will be asked for the contact telephone for the oral review.  Our telephone number for same is 604-739-9333 or 604-318-3838.  But you should ONLY use our telephone number on the application form as the contact number for the oral review if you have pre-arranged that with our lawyer, Jamie Butler in advance.

  • Obtaining our available dates for the actual review in advance:

At the time that you submit your application the clerk at the Driver’s Services Center will actually set the hearing date for the Oral Review or the Submission Date if it is a Written Review.  If you wish for our offices to become involved and represent you for your review/appeal then you MUST contact us PRIOR to submitting the Application to Review a Driving Prohibition as you will need to obtain our available dates for the oral or written review.  Lawyers are generally busy professionals who set their appointment calendars months in advance.   As above indicated, when you submit your application to review the driving prohibition at the Drivers Services Center the clerk will attempt to set a date for the hearing of your review.  If you set a date for your appeal when our lawyer is unavailable then it may be difficult and sometimes impossible for us to change that date.   It is thus important that you seek our instructions PRIOR TO your submitting the application to the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles representative if indeed you want us to actually represent you at the hearing.  If you will performing the review by yourself and without a lawyer then you can simply fill out and submit the form on your own and without seeking our prior instructions.

  • After the application comes the Disclosure

Immediately after you submit your Application to Review a Driving Prohibition the clerk at the Driver’s Service Center will either IMMEDIATELY provide you with some disclosure materials (ie. a small police report and some other reports that are regularly filled out by the arresting officer an/or others) while you are in the office or later by fax or pick up.  Once you have this information available (which we lawyers call “Disclosure”) then you can either bring it to our office or fax it to us and we can provide you with our FREE legal opinion as to whether your appeal has merit or not. You should call us after you review your Disclosure from the SMV as sometimes we can find technicalities for you that may work to your benefit in your appeal. (** PLEASE NOTE: if you want us to become involved in your review it is up to YOU to call us and arrange a meeting to retain us to perform the review, however sometimes this can be done merely by our agreement over the phone).

  • Retaining our services

Our office generally charges a small fee to actually conduct your review for you but you can choose to perform the review without us by yourself for free.  Our opinion as to the merits of your ADP appeal/review in the first instance is usually free of charge.  It is only really after the Disclosure is available for review that our driving prohibition lawyer can give you a detailed opinion as to how to advance the best defences/appeal.  For IRPs and ADPs we sometime require a very small fee to be paid in advance for the provision of legal advice before the disclosure is reviewed.

If after reviewing all of the available materials and after speaking to you about the particular circumstances and we feel that there may be some real merit to your appeal then we will ask you for additional funds to conduct the review (and in this event we will then credit you for any previous reviewing costs that you may have paid us already towards the appeal).  The actual fees for review will depend upon a variety of factors.  Our fees are usually quite reasonable and start at $500 plus tax.

Advanced preparation for the IRP appeal or ADP appeal

The preparation for the oral review or written review for an IRP review hearing or an ADP review hearing can be tremendous.  Depending upon the nature of your appeal and the evidence we feel will be necessary to conduct a meritorious appeal we will regularly obtain witness statements, expert reports from a forensic toxicologist and other materials (photographs, internet maps, data, and other information) prior to the hearing.  We will need your help in determining and gathering this information and you will work with our  lawyer, Jamie Butler, and become an intricate part of the process.  Usually your statement will be the focus of the review and we find that proper preparation of that statement is crucial to a successful review.

The oral appeal itself:

The oral or written review is usually conducted without you or ANY police officers present.  In the regular run-of-the-mill oral review hearing a Reviewing Officer (agent of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles (SMV) office) will call our office by telephone and both parties will have written materials (reports from the police officers involved and the written materials that we have previously submitted for you by fax).   As there is no ability by law for the Reviewing Officer to actually question or cross-examine you (and equally no ability for your lawyer to question or cross-examine the police officer involved in your investigation) most of the times the oral review hearing is simply a matter of going through all of the evidence, the law and the application of the fact and law to your appeal.  Given the above there is very little to be gained from your personal presence at the time of the actual review.  Most of the work will have been done by our lawyer well in advance of the actual oral hearing.  If it is your preference to attend for the oral hearing then that, of course, will be arranged.  (Sometime we merely arrange a 3-way conference call so that you can actually hear our submissions, etc., at the time they are being made).  As indicated however that this not absolutely necessary.