Have you ever come home from work, cracked open a cold beer or indulged in a glass of wine only to remember you needed to run an errand? For most, getting behind the wheel would not place them in jeopardy of being over the 0.05% blood alcohol limit. However, when your vehicle is a truck which is manufactured to have a specified gross combination mass, regardless of whether the truck is loaded or not, the blood alcohol reading of the driver cannot be in excess of 0.02%.
For over 30 years, our client had been involved in the trucking industry and was held in such high regard that his business had been contracted with the Department of Transport to train and assess individuals applying for their trucking license for the past decade. The annual renewal of his instructors license required disclosure of any traffic related convictions or disqualifications, of which, he had none.
After arriving home one day after work our client had a beer to unwind. After he drank his beer, our client forgot that his truck was due for a roadworthiness check. On his way, our client was stopped by police then conducting random breath tests. He blew…and was found to be driving his truck with a blood alcohol content in excess of 0.02%.
We invited the prosecution to discontinue the charges by reference to the absence of any weighed load on the truck at the relevant time, the impact of a conviction on his instructors licence and operation of his business, our client’s exemplary record and negligible risk of re-offending. As is often the case in driving related charges, the prosecution was of the view that general deterrence outweighed all the factors in favour of discontinuing and declined to do so.
After satisfying ourselves that there was no available defence that could arguably succeed at trial, we advised our client to plead guilty. The Magistrate agreed that had our client been driving a regular vehicle, no offence would have even been committed. We were successful in persuading the Magistrate that our client was of prior good character, unlikely to reoffend, and that a conviction would cause significant detriment to his livelihood and the ability to continue provide employment to numerous personnel in his business.
Our client was sentenced to pay the minimum possible fine of $200 and a minimum mandatory license disqualification of 3 months was imposed. To our client’s relief, our application for a spent conviction order was granted.
