What is VASAP?

What is VASAP? It’s the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program. For certain offenses in Virginia, VASAP is mandatory.

Transcription

Hello, I’m Andrew Flusche. I’m a Virginia traffic attorney. Today I wanted to answer a common question that clients ask when they’re charged with a DUI or DWI in Virginia. One thing that comes up is VASAP. What is VASAP? Simply put, it stands for The Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program and what that is, is a requirement for certain offenses if you’re convicted of them in Virginia. It is required that you attend VASAP.

Essentially it’s a series of classes and treatment designed to help people with any kind of alcohol or substance abuse problem that they may have. VASAP is designed to help you overcome that and get back on your feet and make sure that you don’t have future problems. If you’re convicted of DUI in Virginia, VASAP is a mandatory requirement. It can be waived by the court if good cause is shown, but it’s rarely, if ever, waived in first DUI cases. So VASAP is something that if you’re charged with DUI, and convicted, you would have to attend normally.

The main requirements of VASAP are that you would first go to an intake interview and they determine your level of need and what kind of situation you’re in. They then set you up with a course of treatment or classes that fit your situation best. Most of the time, on a first DUI in Virginia, at least in the Fredericksburg area, you’re looking at a series of classes. That’s all that you would have to do. And you would be reporting to the person handling your file at VASAP, but you just need to do the classes.

VASAP also works with the court on your restricted license if you’re convicted of DUI and get a restricted license. So you would be working with them closely. If you needed to go to the doctor, for instance, they would help authorize that on your restricted license. But the main thing that VASP does is those alcohol treatment classes. That’s the main thing that they are for.

The classes themselves aren’t really a problem; you just need to be sure to attend them and participate. The real concern for a lot of clients is that VASAP can be pricey. The current rate for around this area is around $400 for your VASAP classes. If you’re from out of state and you get a charge here in the Fredericksburg area normally what happens, if you’re convicted of the DUI, is that you would need to enroll with the VASAP here and pay them a monitoring fee, which is usually around $300. Then they would help you find a similar course of treatment where you are, in whatever state you’re in, and you would have to pay that course as well to do the classes with them and VASAP here in Virginia would simply monitor you.

So as you can see, if you’re from out of state VASAP can actually get quite expensive, because you’re paying a substantial fee in Virginia and you’re going to have to also pay some fees to the course that you actually participate with wherever you’re from.

That’s all it is; VASAP is the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program. It’s mandatory on certain offenses, such as DUI, and it’s something that we can definitely talk about if you call me to discuss your case.