No Lost Time with a “Petition For Credit”
I’m a Montgomery County driver’s License Lawyer. Helping people avoid suspension or assisting them in getting them restored is one of the things I do. I like to do it because I know how crippling not having a driver’s license can be. Truth be told, most people’s licenses are suspended for really stupid reasons. Not responding to tickets, not paying fines, not showing up for court, etc. But I have a special place in my heart for those people who get suspended, actually abide by the suspension, and then call PennDot to get their license back only to be told that they have to serve their suspension all over again because they never turned in their license to PennDot back when their suspension started – so they never got the credit. While turning in your license to PennDot is the law, and PennDot tells you this in the letter they send you, there are a lot of people who just let it get past them, and thus they end up serving a suspension they never get credit for. This post is for you.
When this happens a person may get a lawyer and file with PennDot which is called a “Petition For Credit”. This petition serves as a request by the driver to have been PennDot award them with the “suspension credit” they would have gotten had their driver’s license been turned in timely. PennDot will schedule an “administrative hearing” in Harrisburg and you and your lawyer can go plead your case. Keep in mind, that although PennDot is normally a bloodless, uncaring bureaucracy – unwilling to give on anything, in the area of suspension credit they do actually listen and cut drivers’ breaks regarding license suspension credit.
Here is an example of a case I handled and was able to get credit awarded. My client gets stopped and his license is suspended. The cop confiscates his license. My client believes, reasonably as it turned out, that the cop would submit that license to PennDot and that my client would start getting credit for his suspension from the date the cop turns it in. Well, the officer didn’t submit it and my client didn’t get credit. When we found out we filed the aforementioned petition and went to Harrisburg. As it turned out, the hearing officer agreed that the officer should have turned the license in. She then awarded my client all of his credit time – a year. He got his license restored that day. Moral of the story: You can fight PennDot on suspension credit and win.
If you have any questions regarding license suspension credit issues or if you would like information regarding a petition for credit, you may contact me at my Norristown office at 610-239-8870.