A friend was on probation for a DUI, and is currently in the ARD program. Their license was suspended for 30days, it has been 30 days, however never had the confirmation letter mailed yet, and was caught driving... nothing serious... how will this affect their probabtion, and will it make them unable to complete the ARD program?

Hello brook:

If your friend was sentenced to 30 days without a license, then that's what it means. Otherwise, the sentence would have said, the license is suspended until he gets a letter. I don't think it says that. Therefore, I think his license was valid after 30 days - letter or not.

excon

and was caught driving...nothing serious...
I'd rethink this one. Getting "caught" driving with a suspended license is very serious, at least in the eyes of the law. It will probably add years to his license suspension. He may not end up in jail over it but he'll be walking for a good long time. Generally, when the suspension period has expired it's up to the driver to initiate the proceedings to have his/her license reinstated ; it doesn't just happen automatically.

Yes, if indeed the DMV shows the drivers license as suspended, and he was ticket or arrested for that, it is a fairly serious traffic violation, it is very close up there to DUI.

When I was a officer if we caught someone with a suspended sentence and there was not another licensed driver in the car, we would impound their car. And often the fine for driving on suspended is higher than the DUI fine. Also normally it will keep the licensed suspended a lot longer or even get it revolked.

And depending on the terms of the probation, this very well could violate that probation and invoke what ever the orgainal sentense was in the DUI.

So yes this is a lot more seroius than you are making it, and really need to get an attorney invovled in this ASAP. If the attorney can get a letter from the judge that the license was not really suspended at that time but merely the paper work has no cleared, then they will be OK, but often on suspended sentence, you have to appear back in court or at least go to the DMV and request it to be reinstated.