On average over 1200 Immediate Roadside Prohibitions are issued in BC each month, but only a handful of people dispute them. We think that this is absolutely terrible because so many people end up stuck with 90-day DUIs even though they could have won on appeal if they got some good DUI advice.
One thing we can tell you is that the legal arguments at IRP hearings have become so sophisticated it would blow your mind.
A couple of things bring this to mind today. Over the weekend we spoke with a lawyer who practices in a completely different area of the law. His buddy called him with a 90-day IRP. The lawyer, an intelligent and skilled solicitor, didn’t know what to tell his friend. The two of them spoke on the phone, and both looked at the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act online. They concluded that he was probably screwed and he might as well move back to Ireland.
A DUI lawyer or a tax lawyer?
There is a reason we don’t do mergers and acquisitions or financial securities law. It’s not our area of specialization and we don’t want to give bad legal advice. We know criminal and driving law — that’s our particular and unusual expertise, and we succeed in more IRP DUI cases than any other firm in BC every month since the IRP law was enacted. When it comes to impaired driving defence, we know our stuff.
Knowing what we know, it was particularly painful to speak with this lawyer and hear a description of the discussion with the buddy. After reviewing some BC Government websites, the lawyer and his friend concluded that it was all over and there was no point in disputing the IRP.
This is what we call bad DUI advice. We’re not knocking the lawyer — he was trying to help out a friend, but you can’t rely on BC Government websites to identify the defences to an IRP. The Government doesn’t want people to defend IRPs and besides, the Government doesn’t figure out the defences — that’s our job. One thing that has rattled the entire IRP program at RoadSafetyBC is the inroads lawyers have made challenging these new DUIs. We find new defences all of the time because that’s where we focus our efforts 10 to 14 hours of the day.
If you need an IRP defence lawyer, call our office. In British Columbia we’re the most successful in appealing 90-day IRP and roadside breathalyzer prohibitions. And if you practice nothing but tax law, send your friends to us instead of trying to help them with their IRP. You’ll be doing them a big favour, and probably saving them a lot of after-tax money in the process.
It seems pretty straightforward
We got a call this weekend from someone who told us he’d try a DIY DUI defence because his case seemed pretty straightforward. There is nothing straightforward about defending a 90-day IRP drinking driving case. It’s such an absurd statement. We kinda want to laugh except that its really quite sad.
Our blog has hundreds of posts but very few lay out the defences we use to defend IRPs because we’re not giving away trade secrets. Also we’re not compromising the interests of our clients. The thing is that we know darn well that if the whole world knew the IRP defences, some people will employ tactics at the roadside to obstruct police investigations. Aside from the fact that it’s a criminal offence to obstruct the police in such a manner, if there is a flood of any particular type of case, it becomes impossible to succeed at the IRP appeal hearing.
Think of this scenario. An IRP defence lawyer at Acumen identifies a certain defence that arises from a fact scenario at the roadside. An Acumen IRP lawyer conducts the hearing, and before the decision is rendered we post on the blog all about this police screw up that created the defence. Then suddenly the RoadSafetyBC tribunal has twenty self-represented DIY drivers trying to run the same defence as we posted on our blog. What happens? Probably everybody loses, including our client who would otherside have succeeded in their IRP appeal.
Let’s blow your mind.
Knowing this, we don’t go around telling people the defences to 90-day IRP DUIs. One thing we can tell you is that the legal arguments at IRP hearings have become so sophisticated it would blow your mind.
Of course, the adjudicators at RoadSafetyBC are officially not allowed to consider the personal circumstances of the driver, so all of those people who think it’s straightforward and want to talk about their hardships are destined to lose. And those people who think they’ll succeed at an IRP appeal because their rights were violated? We’re all laughing. Okay — you’ve read some of our blog posts already. “Rights,” as in those provisions of our Charter of Rights designed to protect us from the overreaching hand of the Government, are not recognized by the RoadSafetyBC tribunal. The tribunal doesn’t grant Charter remedies, so don’t bother arguing that.
The primary mind-blowing IRP arguments arise from two distinct areas: police procedure and the application of administrative law principles to the interpretation of the IRP provisions in light of the restriction on the review process.
Do you know an expert in IRP police procedure? Surprising to us is that we have found only two or three police officers who we would consider actual experts in IRP police procedure. Interesting to us is that these officers very rarely issue IRPs.
Think about that for a minute. We know hundreds of police officers from all around BC. We know many of them fairly well on a professional basis. Perhaps as few as 3 would we consider real experts in IRP police procedure.
What you can take from that is that many police officers are not so knowledgeable about IRP police procedure. Think about that for a minute. If the police are not so knowledgeable about IRP police procedure, and that’s their job and they’ve received training, how knowledgeable do you think a regular schmuck with an IRP is about police procedure?
An expert in Administrative Law principles as applied to the IRP provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act
Are you an expert in administrative law principles in relation to the IRP provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act? Can you apply those principles to the facts with a full understanding of police procedure and the proper functioning of Approved Screening Devices? Have you been trained in the absorption, elimination and distribution of alcohol in the human body? Have you yourself conducted hundreds of breathalyzers tests using police equipment? Have you studied thousands of unpublished documents about breathalyzer malfunctions? Do you read all of the case law, new and old, regarding decision making in administrative tribunals?
Of course not. That’s our job. It’s not straightforward in any manner, but we made ourselves super skilled at the application of administrative law principles to the interpretation of the IRP provisions in light of the restrictions on the review process.
Good DUI advice / Bad DUI advice
We care about the law. We care about our clients and we want to succeed for our clients. If you or someone you know got a DUI, tell them to call us. This is good DUI advice. The call to us is free and you can’t go wrong by making a call. Also we really like finding the solutions to succeed in DUI cases, so we actually enjoy talking to people who call us with an IRP.
As we said above, the majority of people don’t dispute their IRP despite the fact that we succeed in the majority of IRP appeal hearings. It seems that a lot of people get bad DUI advice.
It’s too bad that they didn’t call us.