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Automatic license suspension
Automatic License Suspension, also called immediate or mandatory license suspension, refers to administrative per se (APS), automatic license revocation (ARL), or on-the-spot-license suspension laws. In Texas, the ARL laws took effect on the first of January in 1995. The automatic license revocation laws consist of a civil, administrative process which is completely unrelated to the criminal court proceedings. For this reason, it is frequently said that a person has two trials to win following a charge for DWI.
Once a person has been stopped on suspicion of drunk driving and brought into the police office following their refusal of a field sobriety test (FST), he or she is given the option of taking a chemical test. This is where it gets tricky. If a person is to take the chemical test (generally a breathalyzer) and fail, his or her driver's license is revoked; however, at the same time, if that same person refuses to take the chemical test, his or her driver's license is still revoked. Following each action, the police officer serves the alleged offender with a notice that his or her license will be suspended.
At the end of that, the driver's license is revoked and the alleged offender is given a temporary permit. The alleged offender is given 15 days to request a hearing to save his or her license from the ARL laws. If a hearing is not requested in that window, the alleged offender's license will be suspended. This generally occurs on the 40th day following the arrest and notice.
At the end of the suspension period, the driver pays a fee of $125 to reinstate their license. In addition to punishing individuals arrested on suspicion of DWI, the process applies to individuals arrested for boating while intoxicated who also refuse or fail a chemical test.
If an individual chooses not to challenge their license's suspension, the license is subject to a suspension period of 180 days, or 6 months. Interestingly enough, because they are separate, if a person does not challenge the revocation of his or her license, it would seem reasonable that this person could be found not guilty of drunk driving but still not have a license.