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Driving While Disqualified or Suspended

In December 2007, the Sentencing Advisory Council agreed to undertake a study on sentencing options for offenders found guilty of driving while disqualified.

Under the Road Safety Act 1986, the maximum penalty for a first offence of driving while disqualified or suspended is 30 penalty units or imprisonment for 4 months. People who repeatedly drive while their license is disqualified or suspended face a mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment for 1 month. Victoria is the only state in Australia that has a mandatory sentence of imprisonment for repeat offenders for this offence.

Driving while disqualified or suspended raises both sentencing issues and broader social issues. This behaviour has been shown to increase the risk of accidents and injury, both to these drivers and to the community at large.

The Sentencing Advisory Council released an Information Paper in December 2007 and a Discussion Paper in June 2008. These papers review research on the causes and consequences of driving while disqualified or suspended and provide information on the incidence of this offence.

The final report on this project was released in April 2009.