Criminal Defense
Since 1993
Since 1993
Business Purposes Only license (BPO), The Basics
I want to say a couple of things about a business purposes only license. So, you’ve got your DUI, its pending, and within the 10 days you went and got your business purposes only license.
Now you’re wondering: what can I do with this license?
Well, obviously, you can’t do anything fun. You cannot go to the beach. You cannot go to the movies, you cannot go out to eat. That’s obvious, right, if a cop sees you pulling out of a restaurant at 10 at night on a restricted license–you’re going to get arrested, unless you work at that restaurant.
So, what a restricted license says is that its ok for you to drive to work. Its ok for you to drive to school. College, high school, any sort of school. It is ok for you to drive to and from a church situation, any religious activity. That’s fine too.
And finally, it is ok to drive for medical purposes. That’s the real gray area, is medical purposes. Because, what if your doctor tells you that you have to go to the gym three times a week? So, a cop sees you on a restricted license pulling out of the RDV Sportsplex. Well, if you’re pulling out of a nice gym, you could get arrested unless you can back it up and say “No, I was here for medical purposes, not just to increase my biceps or what have you.” You might get away with that. I would recommend your doctor actually write you a letter and say look, I want John going to the gym 5 times a week, etc. etc. So, cover yourself on all these other little issues.
Same thing goes for grocery stores. Can I go get groceries? Well, that’s not really listed in the statute. The statute says Work, School, Church, and Medical purposes. So, if your doctor says “Hey, go get some orange juice, you need some more vitamin C”, or you need some over the counter pain reliever, go get some. I don’t see what’s wrong–for medical purposes–with going to the grocery store. Even if you happen to pick up a lot of other stuff at the grocery store. But, you better be able to back up your story that you were there primarily because your doctor told you to go.
So, these are some complications that you’re going to have on a restricted license. Be careful out there.