We get calls from nice people from all around the province to ask about DUI cases in BC, Immediate Roadside Prohibitions and criminal charges. Many people are well versed because they’ve read our site and visited our FAQ pages.
As lawyers, and particularly as the leading IRP defence firm, we do our best to answer the questions most people have here on our blog and on our site. From time to time we sit down to discuss whether the questions are changing that people typically ask when they call us. We notice trends. For example, recently the changes to the Remedial Programs (in response to our successful challenge to those programs) has some people wondering whether they should challenge their Immediate Roadside Prohibition or just wait to dispute the inevitable referral to the Responsible Driver Program and 1-year minimum interlock requirement. Others are concerned that the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles will somehow punish them if they dispute their IRP.
Questions such as these usually arise from the confusing information that the Government puts out into the world regarding IRPs or other bad information people find on unreliable websites. The important thing that you should keep in mind is that the Government is not there to help you, the police want to see IRPs upheld (no matter what we often see) and so you should not simply rely on the Government for information about Immediate Roadside Prohibitions. They have a bias. It’s their legislation. They don’t want the Government to look bad because too many people succeed on IRP reviews.
We want people to be informed. So we do our best to counteract misinformation by explaining the defence perspective on IRPs and criminal law. As far as we’re concerned, the better informed you are, the better you will be able to deal with matters as things move forward.
To that end, we have a number of pages on our site dedicated to answering the Frequently Asked Questions that callers ask concerning criminal law cases and IRP driving prohibitions DUI cases. Because the frequency of certain questions tends to change, we update these pages frequently. For example, we have added the answers to the two most recent popular IRP questions on our IRP Law FAQ page. You will now find answers to the questions:
- Should I skip disputing the IRP and simply wait to dispute the Interlock and Responsible Driver Program?
- I’m really guilty. Heck, I was drunk. Why should I dispute my IRP?
Lots of people have been phoning us recently with the question about waiting to dispute the RR. This is almost always a bad strategy based on a misunderstanding of the procedure so we wanted to clear that up for people. And many people are still of the mistaken belief that the police can issue them an IRP because they drove drunk. Strange as it may seem, driving drunk in itself cannot form the basis for an IRP. Many drunk drivers get their IRP lifted because of an obscure technical defense that we find in police records.
Criminal Law questions:
We get many calls from people who couldn’t sleep all night because they were arrested. Sometimes they find our site at 4:00 a.m. and spend an hour going through our Criminal Law FAQs. We understand the stress people are facing when they’ve been arrested and they wonder what the future holds.
The best legal advice we can give you if you’ve been arrested for theft, assault or any other criminal matter is to go back to bed, try and sleep and call us in the morning. Stressing out in the middle of the night will not help. If this is the first time you’ve ever been in serious trouble, chances are very good that we can get you through this without harsh consequences or even a criminal record.
In our best effort to ease the mind of those with a criminal case, we have created another new page to answer some of the more complex questions that people have when they need a criminal lawyer. So, if you really want in-depth answers to complex yet frequently asked criminal law questions, visit our new FAQ page: More Criminal Law FAQs.
And once again, if you’re here on our website in the middle of the night because you’re stressed about your criminal case or DUI, go back to bed, try and sleep and call us in the morning. We’re here to help you. We’re easy to talk to. And we’re more than happy to help you deal with your criminal law problem and all DUI cases.