Special hardship licences or hardship licences are an option the Queensland Magistrates courts have to allow a person to continue to drive even though their licence will be suspended by Queensland Transport for incurring more than 1 demerit point on a good driving behaviour period or driving over 40km/h.
We have a full page devoted to special hardship licences that explains all the details.
This blog post is all about what conditions will the court impose if they grant a hardship licence.
SHO conditions
When a Queensland magistrates court grants a special hardship order it will impose certain conditions that must be followed. The court will never allow a person to drive with no conditions.
What type for conditions can be imposed
Time and Day
The court will always specific the days and times that someone can drive under a special hardship order. For example the court may say you can only drive to and from work and work purposes Monday to Friday from 7am to 4pm.
It is critical that you put in your affidavit all the times and days you will need to drive, if its not covered in the affidavit the Magistrate isn’t likely to grant all the hours and days people want or need.
The more difficult condition to obtain from a court is a 24/7 licence. The courts are extremely reluctant to allow a person to drive at anytime or any date. Some Magistrates simply wont grant that. If it is critical to drive 24/7 or drive when on-call then this must be extensively discussed in the affidavit.
Passengers
Whether you can drive with a passenger and who those passengers are is something that must go into the special hardship order.
The court might for example allow you to drive with employees in the car. Things to watch out for are things like whether someone might not actually be an employee they might be a contractor, if so the order must allow contractors to be in the vehicle as well.
Logbook
The court often put on a requirement that a driver complete a logbook before driving showing the date, time and purpose of that journey and make it available to a police officer on request.
Classes of vehicle
The court will restrict the types of vehicle someone can drive e.g. they might restrict a person to driving only vehicles capable of being driven under a C class licence.
If someone needs both an C and say a MR licence then this needs to go into the order.
Purpose of travel
For what purpose you can drive is the most important condition on a hardship licence. The reason you can drive will be restricted, you simply wont be able to drive for any purpose not listed on the hardship licence. For example if granted to drive for work that will be clearly stated on the order including the type of work you do, if you are allowed to drive for certain personal reasons like going to a doctor then that will be on the order.
Type of employment/business
The conditions on the hardship order might include a restriction on the type of employment or work types that a person can undertake.
Area that can be driven
The courts generally don’t limit the area that someone can drive under a special hardship licence. The court if appropriate could limit someone to driving in Brisbane or between the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast but this is not common.
What happens if the court doesn’t grant all the conditions I need?
You can only drive in accordance with the terms under the order, if you need to drive outside of those conditions you cannot legally do that.
The court didn’t grant my application for a hardship licence, what can I do about it.
There is nothing you can do if the court does not grant the hardship order.
My circumstances have changed what can I do?
You can make an application to the court to vary the current special hardship order.
What happens if I’m caught not complying with the conditions?
The court can end the remainder of the period left on the hardship licence and add a further 3 months of disqualification.
How much do you charge for a special hardship application?
We charge a fixed price of $2,000 and this covers the drafting of the affidavits and appearing in court with you.
How do I get more help or engage you to act for me?
We have been operating since 2010 and undertaken over 1,000 successful special hardship licence applications throughout South East Queensland.
If you want to engage us or just need further information or advice then you can either;
- Use our contact form and we will contact you by email or phone at a time that suits you
- Call us on 1300 952 255 seven days a week, 7am to 7pm
- Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Click here to select a time for us to call you back
- Visit our main website page
Need more information?
We have a range of articles on Special Hardship Orders on our blog. Some of the most recent have included:
- What happens in court when applying for a special hardship order?
- Essential Guide to Special Hardship Licences
- Time Limit Change for Special Hardship Orders
- Special Hardship Orders v Work Licences
- Driving children under a Special Hardship Licence
- Special Hardship Application Time Frames
- Special Hardship Licences
