I’m surprised this isn’t already being done. From the Tennessean:
Cases can linger in the courts for months or years before judges decide to revoke driving privileges. Under a proposal from a Bredesen-appointed task force, officers would take a DUI suspect’s license and provide a temporary license. An administrative law judge would decide within days, via telephone, whether to issue a more restrictive license while the DUI case is pending.
Restricted licenses typically allow motorists to drive only to and from work, church, medical appointments or other essential trips.
While I can appreciate the due-process concerns raised later in the article, as long as the bureaucracy moves quickly enough, as long as the ALJ at least reviews the information available as of the time of the decision, and provided that the restrictive-license time can be counted against any eventual sentence, I don’t see a problem here.
Presumably, most DUI cases are cut-and-dry. Within a few days after the arrest, presumably blood or breathalyzer test results will be available, and the subject should be able to come up with documentation that might make those test results noncredible (e.g., working as a fire-eater in a carnival).
If the evidence isn’t so cut-and-dry…well, the ALJ would presumably have the authority to permit the license to be returned and full driving privileges granted pending the actual trial.
Seems like a no-brainer to me.