4.2 Drink-Drive Penalties and Disqualification

4.2 Drink-Drive Penalties and Disqualification

Quick Answer: Learn two layers of the same GPF package. The body text of the Learner/Driver Theoretical Programme sets a first-offence fine of GY$7,500 when a breathalyser is over the legal limit; two consecutive convictions disqualify you for 12 months unless the court for special reasons orders a longer period; a third conviction permanently disqualifies you. The programme poster says the same ladder in campaign language: first time fined $7,500, second time lose your licence for one year, third time lose your licence for good.

Penalties are where candidates mix up the poster, the body text, and older Act figures for a different offence. This section keeps those sources distinct so you can answer the sitting from the study package without inventing extra punishments.

The programme poster (public-education ladder)

The April 2025 booklet opens the drink-drive page with a Guyana Police Force poster:

Don't drink and drive. If we catch you, you're in trouble!

That poster is part of the official study package, so exam questions may quote it almost verbatim. "For good" means permanent disqualification, not a weekend suspension and not a promise that a new provisional licence will be issued automatically after a waiting period. "One year" on the poster is the same twelve months the body text uses for two consecutive convictions.

The poster is a summary. It does not list every court power. It also uses the American spelling "license" on some printings; Guyanese statute language is licence. Either spelling on a question is the same document.

The programme body text (the more precise rule)

Immediately under the poster, the booklet states the offence (drive / attempt to drive / be in charge, covered in 4.1) and then the consequences:

• If you are stopped, given a breathalyser test, and it registers over the legal limit, you will be subject to a fine of $7,500.00.
• A person convicted of two consecutive offences will be disqualified for a period of 12 months, unless the court for special reasons decides to order a longer period of disqualification.
• A third conviction, and you will be permanently disqualified from driving.

Read those three bullets as a ladder, not as three unrelated rumours.

First offence: the fine, not automatic disqualification

The first consequence the package names for a breathalyser over the legal limit is GY$7,500. The drink-drive page does not say a first conviction itself disqualifies you. Do not import a 12-month ban onto a first offence because the poster mentions a year on the second line. Do not substitute the GY$5,000–$10,000 hand-held phone band from section 37A, the GY$3,500 programme registration fee, or the GY$1,000 theory re-sit fee — those are different money.

Two consecutive convictions: 12 months, and the court may go longer

"Two consecutive offences" is the booklet's phrase. After those two convictions, disqualification is 12 months from the conviction, which is the poster's "one year." The important extra clause is the court's power: unless the court for special reasons decides to order a longer period of disqualification.

Two exam traps sit in that sentence:

1. The court may order longer, not shorter, when it uses that special-reasons power as the booklet describes it. Do not invent a "the magistrate can let you off the ban" reading from that clause.
2. Consecutive is about the convictions following one another on the drink-drive ladder, not about whether the two drives happened on the same night along the East Bank. A second conviction after a first is what the poster calls "second time."

Disqualification means you are barred from holding or obtaining a driver's licence for the ordered period. Driving while disqualified is a further offence under Cap. 51:02 — it is not a cheap way to "practise until the year is up." The Licensing Authority's register under section 29 records convictions against the holder, so the second and third rungs of this ladder are not invisible.

Third conviction: permanent disqualification

"A third conviction, and you will be permanently disqualified from driving" is the body text. The poster says the same thing as "lose your licence for good." Permanent means the licence is not simply parked for twelve months. Do not treat a third conviction as another GY$7,500 ticket with the same one-year ban as the second.

How the poster and the body text map

If a question quotes the poster, you may answer in poster words. If a question asks what the court may do on two consecutive convictions, you must include 12 months and the power to order a longer period for special reasons. Both belong to the same GPF package; they are not rival laws.

What this ladder is — and is not

This ladder is the prescribed-limit path in the Theoretical Programme. It is the set of figures the electronic sitting is built around for drink-drive questions.

It is not the older Home Affairs consolidation's separate impairment offence (driving while so under the influence of drink or a drug as to be incapable of proper control), which carries its own summary-conviction fines and imprisonment in Cap. 51:02. When booklet abridgement and the Act speak of different offences, teach both: the exam is derived largely from the GPF package, and the Act is the statute. For a question that says breathalyser over the legal limit, or that quotes the poster, GY$7,500 / 12 months / permanent is the answer. For a question that says incapable of proper control through drink or a drug, recognise that as the impairment offence, not a reason to throw away the programme's $7,500 figure on a prescribed-limit item.

The ladder also does not replace other duties after a crash. If alcohol is involved in a collision on a public road, you still have the Highway Code duties to stop, give particulars, and obtain qualified aid — those sit in a later chapter. Disqualification is about the licence; it does not erase first-aid or reporting duties.

Guyana roads, left-hand traffic, and why the second rung exists

Guyana keeps left. An impaired driver who weaves toward the centre line is weaving into the path of oncoming traffic, not into an empty right-hand shoulder of a right-hand-traffic country. That is why the package treats a second consecutive conviction as a year off the road, and a third as the end of the driving privilege. The point of the ladder is not to help you budget for tickets on the East Coast; it is to keep a repeat drink-driver off Mandela Avenue, the Soesdyke–Linden Highway, and every other road or public place named in 4.1.

A first GY$7,500 fine is already a serious summary penalty in the booklet. Treating it as a "warning" because the poster has two more lines is a candidate error. The second and third rungs exist because some drivers pay the first fine and drink-drive again. The register at the Licensing Authority is how the later rungs can be proved.

Exam traps

• First prescribed-limit offence in the programme: GY$7,500, not GY$5,000–$10,000 (phones) and not GY$3,500 (registration).
• Second rung: two consecutive convictions → 12 months, and the court may order longer, matching the poster's one year.
• Third rung: permanent disqualification / lose the licence for good, not another 12 months.
• Do not move the one-year ban onto a first offence.
• Do not invent a published "special reasons" list; the booklet says the court may order a longer period, and it does not print a catalogue of excuses.