LICENSE SUSPENSION

First offenders charged with driving under the influence are often eligible for the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition Program, generally referred to as "ARD." ARD permits a first-time offender to submit to alcohol counseling, probationary supervision, and driver's license suspension and, upon satisfactory completion of the program, to earn an expungement of his or her criminal record. It is commonplace for Pennsylvania judges to require that ARD offenders give their driver's licenses to the court in order to be accepted into the program.

Recently, a Pennsylvania driver was accepted into ARD and relinquished his license in the courtroom. About two weeks later, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation ("PennDOT") notified the driver that his license was suspended. On the bottom of the PennDOT notice was a paragraph indicating that the suspension date would commence at the end of the next month. Relying on the suspension date in the PennDOT notice, the man resumed driving. Arrested for driving under suspension for DUI, an offense that carries a mandatory 90-day jail sentence, he defended his conduct on the basis of the PennDOT notice.

The Pennsylvania court found that the driver's reliance on the clerical error in the PennDOT notice was unreasonable and that it contradicted the clear face-to-face advice given to him by the judge in the court proceedings where his driving privileges were suspended. While the court conceded that the PennDOT notice may have created confusion, it held that the driver had an obligation to inquire further about the status of his privileges rather than to simply commence driving again when he did not have a valid license in his possession.

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