If I fix my license before I go to court won’t my driving on suspended charge be dismissed?
No. Unfortunately, in Virginia if you’re charged with driving on a suspended driver’s license, the key questions at court are whether you were suspended on the day in question and were you actually driving. There’s other pieces the Commonwealth has to prove, such as did you know about the suspension, or should you have known about it? But just fixing your license doesn’t undo the alleged wrong of driving on the day in question.
Some people think that if they fix the license it undoes the problem and the case should just be dismissed when they go to court. But that’s not true. In some courts that could happen, but around the Stafford, Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg area typically a driving while suspended case does not simply get dismissed by fixing your license.
Now it is critical to try to get your license fixed before court because that does make a difference regarding your punishment on a driving while suspended case. In any driving on suspended case, if you are found guilty, the court is supposed to suspend your license for an additional period of time. If your license is not suspended when you come to court typically the courts around Fredericksburg will only suspend you for three more days but if your license is still suspended at court then you may be suspended for three months.
Getting your license fixed may not make the charge go away, but it certainly can help minimize the punishments.
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