Hey, we have all made stupid mistakes.
It won’t seem like it, but you appear to have been incredibly lucky.
I blew 124, but wasn’t caught driving. I was asleep in my car. I didn’t damage anybody, or any thing.
I got 30 months ban and 200 hours of community service, and a 16 week rehabitation course.
It would appear that sentencing is just a lottery.
The 200 hours of community service meant I worked 7 days a week for months, doing weekends in a charity shop, whilst maintaining a full time job. My previos job never found out about the conviction, but it was very stressful hoping that they did not find out. My current job know all about it, but they don’t care. My family, wife, friends all stood by me, but I’ve missed being able to take my wife to the hospital when she needed it, my dog to the vets before she died, and my daughter moving out to her new house. I missed family holidays to do the CS hours. It makes you feel useless.
The time does actually fly. I’m 18 months into my 23 (reduced) ban, and should get my invite to apply for my HRO medical at the end of January. I could be back on the road by end of April if the DVLA medical doesn’t go wrong. My medichecks result for CDT is 0.5.
Please, nobody, be talking about suicide. It is *absolutely* a shit time being banned. And the fear of court in the first place is terrifying. But it isn’t as bad as you think And it passes more quickly than you think it will. The 25% reduction course via TTC is actually quite interesting, and is only 2.5 Saturdays. The 16 week probation rehab course is excrutionately boring and patronising, but is doable at 3 hours once a week.
I still don’t know how this will end for me. But I have hope that I am reaching the end.