There are Ways to Protect Your License from Being Taken Away
Video Transcribed: Don’t just pay that Oklahoma traffic ticket, it could cost you your license. I’m Oklahoma Attorney James Wirth and today I am talking about what traffic citations and convictions could cause you problems with your license.
So first off, pretty much every traffic citation you have, that you could receive in Oklahoma, has a point value assigned to it. And if those points add up to 10 points within five years, you lose your license and I can give you some examples of each of the levels of those.
First point or one point offense would be like defective vehicle, failure to stop at required stops, driving on shoulder, improper turns, impeding traffic, crossing the center median.
Two point citations, if you get a conviction would be like left of center, failure to yield to right of way, following too closely, careless driving, speeding, those types of things.
If you’re speeding 25 miles per hour or over it’s three points. And then if you’re found to be driving recklessly, reckless driving, or failure to stop for a school bus, you’re looking at four points.
So if you get a conviction for those, what happens is the court goes ahead and gives notice of that to the Department of Public Safety and they keep track of your points. They get too high, they pull your license.
But what I really wanted to talk about is not just the points because the surprises that I get from people is when they get a conviction that automatically causes them to lose their license. And they contact me after the fact and we have to see what we can do to get that undone.
Besides the points, there’s automatic offenses. And on that list, we’re talking about one that kind of surprises people. That’s possession of marijuana.
If you’re found possessing marijuana inside a motor vehicle, you get a conviction for that, then the court clerk sends that off to DPS and it’s automatic revocation of your license. So you got to be careful about that, got to get an attorney. We’ll work out a deal that avoids a conviction or something else otherwise you’re going to lose that license.
Another one on that same list is failure to obey a traffic control device, sign or signal when it causes an accident resulting in great bodily injury. You get a conviction for that, automatic loss of license. Another one is failure to stop or remain stopped for a school bus.
We already talked about that one being four points. Well it will be four points, but first it’s going to be an automatic loss of your driver’s license.
And then when you get your license back, you’re still going to have four points on it. So that falls into both of those categories.
Another one on the list is no insurance. If you’re found to be driving with no insurance and you take a conviction for that, automatic loss of your driver’s license. So don’t just plead guilty to that, you’re going to need some help.
And the last one, driving on a suspension or a revocation, DUS as we call them. That is also an additional loss of your driving privileges. So if you get a conviction for driving without a license or a suspended driver’s license, notice of that goes to DPS and they add three months onto your suspension.
And the tough thing about suspensions is when you’re suspended, at the time period that that is over, it doesn’t automatically give you your riving privileges back. You have to apply to DPS for that. You have to pay the fines and fees.
So when they add on three months, it’s not going to be three months from when your last revocation ended. It’s going to be three months from when you get reinstated or get everything else taken care of that would have gotten you reinstated.
So moral of the story is, you get a traffic citation, don’t just plead guilty to it or pay a fine. There are consequences. You’re going to want to talk to an attorney about it. If you want to talk with somebody in my office, you can go to makelaweasy.com.
I’m going to put out another video for when you don’t need an attorney because there are some traffic offenses or some minor categories where you can just pay the fine and its not going to be a problem, but I’ll save that for another video. If you have questions about your circumstances though, go to makelaweasy.com.
