Unlicensed, suspended and disqualified driving

Five different offences, five different consequences

Section 78 covers driving without a licence, but the reason you had no licence controls the outcome. This is the table people should read before they assume all of these are the same charge.

The base offence of driving without a licence carries a maximum of 40 penalty units or 1 year imprisonment. Driving while disqualified by a court order carries 60 penalty units or 18 months.

Why disqualified driving is treated so seriously

A court has already told you not to drive. Driving anyway is contempt for the order, and Queensland courts sentence it that way.

A first disqualified driving charge on an otherwise limited history often resolves with a substantial fine and the mandatory further disqualification. A second one, and particularly one committed while a previous disqualification was still running, regularly attracts a term of imprisonment. Whether that is served in custody or wholly suspended depends on the history and the circumstances of the driving.

The disqualifications also stack. Under sections 90B and 90C, further disqualifications imposed for offences committed at different times run cumulatively. People end up disqualified for six or seven years because they kept driving, not because any one offence was serious.

The mistake that causes most of these charges

A large share of the unlicensed driving matters we see involve drivers who genuinely did not know they were suspended.

• SPER suspensions. An unpaid fine escalates to the State Penalties Enforcement Registry, which suspends the licence by notice. If the notice went to an old address, you may never have seen it.
• Demerit point suspensions. The notice from Transport and Main Roads requires you to choose between a suspension and a good driving behaviour period. If you do not respond, the suspension starts by default.
• Section 79B immediate suspensions. Drivers charged with a mid or high range drink driving offence are sometimes handed the notice and do not read it.

Not knowing is not a complete answer to the charge, because section 78 does not require you to have known. It is powerfully relevant to sentence, and in some circumstances the validity of the suspension notice itself can be examined. That is worth checking before you plead.

What can be done

1. Obtain your full traffic history and the licence status record from Transport and Main Roads. It shows exactly what suspension was in force and from when.
2. Check how and where the suspension notice was served. Service defects happen.
3. If the suspension was a SPER suspension, deal with the underlying fine. A payment plan or a work and development order can lift the suspension and it demonstrates something to the court.
4. Get the mitigation together. Employment, family responsibilities, medical reasons for the journey and steps taken since all bear directly on whether the court imposes imprisonment.

There is no work licence or special hardship order available for a disqualified driving conviction. The further disqualification runs, and the only variable is its length within the statutory range.