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DUI law in Maine
The criminal charge and your driving privileges are separate questions. Check both.
DUI law in Maine concerns both the criminal charge and the right to drive. The applicable licence process depends on the alleged conduct, test result or refusal, and the notice or court order. A criminal court date is not a substitute for checking a separate licence deadline. The cited rules below identify what has been verified for this jurisdiction.
The two legal questions
The criminal charge and driving privileges can involve different proceedings. The notice, order and cited rule identify the applicable process.
Driving privileges
The licence case
- Forum
- The agency or court identified by the applicable licence proceeding
- Clock
- Check the applicable notice or order for the deadline and its starting event
- Deadline to request a hearing
- A written request for a hearing to review the Maine Secretary of State’s suspension determination must be made within 10 days from the effective date of the suspension under 29-A M.R.S. §2483.
- The statutory trigger is the suspension’s effective date, not the arrest date. The separate 30-day period in subsection 2 concerns the Secretary’s hearing and decision after receipt of a written request, not the driver’s filing deadline.
- If the Secretary finds that lack of actual notice or physical incapacity prevented a timely request, subsection 3 requires the period to be waived and the hearing granted, but no stay may be granted under that late-request exception.
- Suspension under the cited rule
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
- Hearing procedure under the cited rule
- Request a hearing in writing to review the Maine Secretary of State’s suspension determination under 29-A M.R.S. §2483. The request must be made within 10 days from the suspension’s effective date.
- The Secretary must conduct the hearing and issue a decision within 30 days after receiving the written request.
- A hearing request does not by itself stay every suspension; a stay must be specifically provided by Chapter 23. For a refusal suspension, subsection 4-A requires a stay if the requested hearing is postponed or continued for a reason not attributable to the petitioner, until the hearing and decision. A petitioner-caused or requested delay does not receive that stay.
- This is administrative review of the licensing determination, separate from the criminal OUI proceeding.
Criminal charge
The criminal case
- Forum
- A criminal court
- Clock
- Check court notices and orders; no case duration is predicted here
- Alcohol-concentration threshold
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
- First-offense penalty rule
- No previous OUI within 10 years: minimum $500 fine and 150-day court-ordered license suspension. Refusal increases the minimum fine to $600 and ordinarily requires at least 96 hours in jail.
- At least 48 hours in jail applies when BAC is .15 or higher, speed is at least 30 mph over the limit, the driver eludes an officer, or a passenger is under 21. These are minimums, not the complete sentencing range.
- The refusal enhancement depends on the statutory warnings; operating with a passenger under 21 adds 275 days of suspension.
- Lookback period
- 10 years for the ordinary prior-OUI offense tiers; specified prior felony OUI or motor-vehicle criminal-homicide convictions can count regardless of age.
Alcohol-concentration thresholds in Maine
The cited provision controls the threshold’s scope. Underage and commercial rules can concern licensing as well as criminal liability; they are not all the same offense.
- Standard drivers
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
- Operating a commercial motor vehicle
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
- Under-21 rule
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.
Maine in detail
8 further Maine topics — interlock, hardship licences, drug DUI, felony DUI, underage, commercial drivers, checkpoints and record relief — are part of the approved taxonomy and are not built yet.