If an individual is convicted of a Chester County DUI or an ignition interlock violation of 75 Pa.C.S. § 3808(a)(2) and has two prior convictions for qualifying offenses that were committed within 5 years of the latest DUI or ignition interlock offense, the offender would be subject to a 5 year operating privilege revocation mandated by 75 Pa.C.S. § 1542(d). The statute states,
Please note -- Each additional offense committed within a period of five years, as measured from the date of any previous offense, shall result in a revocation for an additional period of two years. You MUST talk to your Chester County DUI lawyer to make sure you don't get hit with the habitual offender status.A "habitual offender" shall be any person whose driving record, as maintained in the department, shows that such person has accumulated the requisite number of convictions for the separate and distinct offenses described and enumerated in subsection (b) committed after the effective date of this title and within any period of five years thereafter.
In some cases, this can come back to haunt you. For example, "Defendant did not contest the convictions on which his five-year license suspension was based; as the Department acted in accordance with § 1542 in imposing the five-year suspension, it was proper. The Department's imposition of an additional two-year suspension was proper because defendant's convictions of driving under the influence and fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer were separate acts and offenses, even though they arose from the same incident." Commonwealth v. Bachman, 1983 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 198 (Pa. C.P. 1983)
Commonwealth v. Melcher is a particularly important case, where the Commonwealth's department of transportation issued a five-year revocation of the driver's operating privileges pursuant to the habitual offender's provisions of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 1542. The driver appealed the revocation to the lower court, which dismissed the appeal and reinstated the revocation order. The driver appealed. The court affirmed the revocation and dismissal of the appeal because the driver was found guilty of violating the Vehicle Code for racing on highways, for fleeing or attempting to elude police officer, and for driving without lights to avoid identification or arrest. Each violation was set forth in § 1532(b) of the Vehicle Code. Therefore, the driver was convicted of three separate and distinct offenses, and the department of transportation properly applied the mandatory revocation provided by Vehicle Code § 1542. Although the violations arose out of a sequence of events that occurred within a space of approximately 10 minutes, the driver was convicted and paid fines for three separate and distinct Vehicle Code violations. Therefore, the evidence was more than sufficient to warrant the dismissal of the driver's appeal.