Wet and Reckless & Drivers Licenses

Anyone over the age of 21 who has been convicted of Wet and Reckless conviction with a BAC under a .08 will typically not lose their driver’s license but will still need to complete a 12-hour wet and reckless program.

Sometimes, a person who is arrested with a BAC at a .08 or .09 will be charged with a DUI, but have it amended to a Wet and Reckless in court. Though the Wet and Reckless charge is a lesser conviction, it can still be a complicated offense. The DMV and courts are separate agencies who function separately from each other. The DMV considers any offense with BAC of .08 or higher as being a DUI and will still suspend your license, even if the court has amended your offense to a Wet and Reckless. The only exception to this is if you file for a hearing with the DMV and win your DMV hearing.

In the case where your license has been suspended, you have two options. You can take a 12-hour Wet and Reckless program and serve out the full suspension of your license with no driving privileges, or you may take a 3 month first offender program and be eligible to have a restricted license throughout the duration of your suspension. The reasoning behind this is that the DMV does not recognize the 12-hour program because typically when someone is sentenced to that program, they have not lost their license.

So in order for the DUI program to submit a Proof of Enrollment to the DMV so you are eligible for a restricted license, you must take a 3 month program.