Ten Points Program to Regain Your Driver's License
After losing the driver's license, at the latest however when the driver's license office has ordered a MPU, every motorist will ask himself what he must concretely do to regain the driver's license as soon as possible. You will also want to know how you shall proceed to optimally take advantage of the time till you will be re-granted the license.
My 10 Points program will give you a clear and reliable answer to your question. It is a guide which will help you to take the right steps at the right time. If you follow it, you can calmly look ahead the weeks or months till the MPU, for you will have excellent prospects of a positive expertise. You will have done everything possible to regain your driver's license.
1. Booking an Informative Consultation
Call me and arrange an informative consultation as soon as possible! Don't wait: do it as soon as possible. Do it already when you driver's license in at risk. Do it if you have lost the license and just now heard about the possibility of a traffic psychological counseling. Do it if you have studied this website and have not yet called on qualified help.
For now, you need valuable information and you do not have to lose time. This will certainly be a good investment. The informative consultation will bring clarity and calmness back and will show you the way you have to go. It will clarify important questions I would like to mention a bit more in detail later on. Don't hold this comprehensiveness against me. More information is always better than less and if you wish so, you can leave this web presence anytime.
- a. Do I need a MPU at all and if yes, what kind of MPU will this be? Which official administrative question and which scope of counseling do I have to reckon with?
- b. How does an examination proceed? What does the expert want to know and how can I optimally prepare for his questions?
- c. When shall I apply for a new license and when shall I contact the driver's license office?
- d. Which reliability time periods do I have to comply with and which medical or other evidence do I have to submit?
- e. Which testing institute is the right one for me?
- f. What do I have to do under any circumstances and what can I voluntarily do to optimize my chances of receiving a positive expertise?
At the end of this informative consultation, you should understand your situation and should have a clear strategy for the next weeks and months. You can now head towards following the single steps, i.e. you can collect the modules of a positive expertise.
2. First Contact with the Driver's License Office
It is indispensible that you get in touch with the person dealing with your affairs in the driver's license office. For he alone can tell you how your case is presenting itself for the administration. Should you still own the license, is there a way to prevent the withdrawal? Is there a chance to do without a MPU? Should a MPU be required, is it possible to postpone the deadline? Should you still possess the license, can you file a protest against the threatening withdrawal and how should you formally proceed, should the license have been withdrawn, to regain it as soon as possible?
If you have to hand over the driver's license, your clerk can tell you when you should do all this, and what you can do to save money, e.g. to avoid a costly rejection. Should you have already lost your driver's license and have to apply for a new one, you can find out when you should submit such an application and which documents you need resp. you have to hand in later. This is dependent on several factors, for example on the time when the license has been issued and on the classes you need.
Officially you are supposed to hand in such an application not until three months before the expiry of the waiting period, but you do not have to wait so long. For you want to clarify already beforehand which administrative doubts have to be addressed in an expertise. Will you only have to take responsibility for a drunk driving, or will the clerk – because you were driving too fast a couple of times – include this topic into the official question. How important is the level of per thousand, which role have a driving without license or a hit-and-run offence?
Although your clerk will not definitely answer these questions before you have formally applied for a new license and before he holds in his hands a certificate of good conduct and your actual point register, you can unofficially find out already in advance, how in all probability he is going to decide. Dependent on this are the evidential documents you have to collect for the MPU and the themes we have to discuss in the traffic psychological counseling.
Should you already have received a negative expertise, you will be interested to find out how soon you can make a new attempt and if you have to hand over the expertise or not.
Do not hesitate to go this way. The clerk at the driver's license office has to give you qualified information and will consult you. He can – if you prefer not to involve a lawyer – help you to choose the right, formally correct and positive next steps. Look at him as a partner to regain your driver's license, not an enemy. This saves you a lot of unnecessary hassle.
3. Contact with potential MPU-Institutes: Preliminary Selection
You should also get in touch with the relevant MPU institutes in good time. For you want to know who will be in charge of you there and which evidence you will be asked to present. Are you informed in a competent and friendly way? Does one tell you point-blank which reliability periods you have to meet and which proof you have to submit? Is it possible to talk to an appropriate doctor or psychologist and how much does such an information cost?
On the web pages on alcohol, drugs, points and legal offences you find further information about the relevant evidentiary documents and time periods. In case of alcohol or drug offences, you should also consult the pages on medical abstinence proofs.
Take into consideration that in case of the last-mentioned groups, normally medical evidence has to be submitted and abstinence periods to be met and that besides liver parameters or urine screenings especially medical certificates or attending a self-help-group can be of importance. In the case of point violations or legal offences court documents or therapeutic certificates might on the other hand be necessary, like presenting a procedural dismissal or an anti-aggression training. Documenting professional changes or the completion of a psychotherapy can be a valuable basis for the decision.
All of this you want to have discussed early and beforehand with the institutes in question to avoid unpleasant surprises on the day of the examination. After these talks you should have a clear idea which institute does and which does not qualify and you will be able to make a pre-decision. The final decision can wait. You will mostly fix it shortly before the MPU after consulting your traffic psychologist.
4. Starting the Traffic Psychological Counseling (MPU Preparation)
Let us assume that you have decided to treat yourself to a traffic psychological counseling. You can try your luck also without the MPU counseling and maybe you will succeed, but it is fair to say that you will improve your chances with it. For on the one hand experts appreciate this measure, since it makes it easier to justify a positive expertise. On the other hand you want to be optimally prepared for the not always easy questions of the expert, and finally, on the day of the examination, you enter into competition with other clients who have successfully completed such a teaching. The money that you invest in such counseling is certainly well spent. You should not stint on this, since a negative expertise with all its unpleasant consequences will cost you dearly.
You have the choice between a group intervention and an individual therapy. The group teaching is less expensive and sometimes sufficient. I only offer individual counseling, for I am not willing to compromise with respect to your driver's license and your rehabilitation. Should you not be able to raise the money for an individual counseling, I will gladly give you the name of colleagues who offer a qualified group course.
If you come to me, you have chosen an individual counseling. We are free to decide on the timing. Often, clients will start off with this therapy right after the informative consultation for us to jointly take care of the steps mentioned above like contacting the driver's license office or the MPU institut. For, if you chose my counseling, I will help you to do so. You will appreciate if you are relieved of some awkward phone call or if someone speaks in your favor who can confirm your honest intention.
Another reason to soon begin with the counseling is the therapeutic effect. Speaking about the past, about mistakes and new ways will have a liberating psychological effect. Also the awareness of being in good hands and the knowledge of the way you have to go, brings back that inner piece often lost with the driver's license.
Finally, an early start will also yield the chance of optimal learning. For, in the counseling, I will note all the relevant answers and connections on a flipchart. You can take these papers home and in efficient intervals learn from them. On the day of the examination, you will have sorted your thoughts and you will be able to optimally present yourself.
Let me however stress again that it is entirely up to you to choose the time of the counseling. Usually, client and therapist agree upon the further procedure in the informative consultation: when the counseling should start, if you want to come once, twice a week, or in some cases even more often and at which time the session can unfold.
At the end of the traffic psychological therapy, you will receive a certificate of participation which can be useful to you in many ways.
5. Implementing the Insights and Positive Changes
Even if you have completed all the recommended steps, that is, have contacted the driver's license office and the MPU institutes, and have started the traffic psychological counseling, you should not be idle. For now it is up to you to tackle important changes in your life. You will not win the examination by learning the right text by heart and trying to restrict yourself to optimally answer the questions of the expert. You will in effect win the test if you improve yourself, if you correct former mistakes, if you change. The good answers will add up to this, but they can only supplement and confirm what is already there.
These changes include the removal of stress, talks with your boss, or other professional improvements. Let me name adjustments in your free time behavior, in how you handle alcohol or drugs, or the choice of the right friends. Positive trends in your private life, in the regaining of health, in sports or in the reactivation of reasonable hobbies will certainly document a positive development. Finally changes in attitude are of course relevant: facts which you can get moving outside of our sessions as well. On the relevant pages concerning the MPU counseling, you find further examples for your case group.
Take this piece of advice seriously. Only if you are ready to put into action what you have learned in the therapy and only, if you change your life in critical aspects, will you be able to convince the expert that your change is stable. For the expert will not only check if you feel remorse at the day of the examination. He will also want to gain enough certainty that you can reach your objects and can permanently preserve it, and for this concrete change you have to be tried and tested at the time of the MPU, are an ideal indication.
6. Completion of the MPU Counseling & Submission of the Certificate
Although the process of change will proceed till the time of the MPU, you will sometime have finished the traffic psychological counseling. You will then receive a valuable Certificate of Participation and I promised you that it can be useful in several respects. Three addressees for my certificate are conceivable.
a) Shortening of the Waiting Period (optional)
This step is optional and hinges on the details of your case. Mostly, a shortening of the waiting period is asked for in alcohol offences. For here, the motorist usually loses his license the day of his drunk driving through police confiscation. The judge will then pronounce a waiting period of about one year in case of a first-time offender. In this time you are not allowed to drive. Now the judge can, if you show remorse and if you have implemented concrete steps of rehabilitation, moderate his sentence and can deduct one two three months from your waiting period with one month being typically granted.
On my page about the Shortening of the Waiting Period you will find important additional hints who to act correctly. After an appropriate time period – but of course before the end of the waiting period – simply present my certificate to the court and secure this discount. It does not cost anything. If you need or do not need the shortening later on, is up to you. The point in time, when you will go into the examination, will above all be dependent on the reliability period which you have to meet. If you have collected the necessary evidence in good time, this month which the court is granting you, will be very useful.
b) Driver's License Office
I would recommend that you hand in my certificate to the driver's license office as soon as possible for several reasons. Firstly the clerk will see that you take things seriously and he can interpret the administrative time frames, as small as they may be, in your favor. For one cannot stress often enough: we are living in a judicial system which aims at rehabilitation and not punishment, and therefore steps of rehabilitation can in the individual case work for you. A clerk can do everything possible for him, he can make concessions with respect to deadlines, legal or administrative procedures, or processing times, and this can make a decisive difference in the individual case. Get me right: although the administrative possibilities might generally be quite limited due to administrative regulation, they do exist within the legal framework. Again and again I have experienced that the administration has found in individual cases, and if the client had optimally cooperated, arrangements which were in his interest.
You are not entitled to these exceptional settlements, but you can aim in the scope of legal possibilities for the optimum. That is why you will hand my certificate over to the administration and will cooperate with the assistant dealing with your affairs. It is worth it.
Another, more banal reason to present the certificate lies in the fact that if it becomes part of your file, it has to be taken note of by the expert. Experts will accept this certificate if you take it along the day of the examination, but an expert could also reject it, since being issued by a freelance psychologist it does not count as an "official document". You can avoid this by including the certificate with your file. You will have several copies of my certificate at your disposal and one of these you will have with you on the day of the examination. Then you are safe in this respect.
c) MPU Institute
Should time have become tight with your file already sent to the MPU institute before we have finished our course, you do not really have to worry. Just hand over the certificate on the day of the examination when you register at the reception. The expert will then always have enough time to study it before you enter the room.
7. Learning
As I already have told you above, the pure visit of my office does not suffice to get a positive expertise. You have to change and you have to implement what you have learned. This we already have discussed. You do, however, also have to spare the time to learn the course contents. It is one thing to understand the issues, it is another one to reproduce them. In the examination, you are pressed for time. You get questions and you have to answer them. Let us not fool ourselves. Although the expert will grant you time to answer, he will not do so unduly. If you do not have an answer ready, he will ask again, and if you do not answer then, he will go on. It does not help you if you find the answer on your way home. You have to present it in time.
The only chance to optimally position yourself here is to learn. For if you have studied the course contents several times and quickly have found a response, you will also be able to reply on the day of the examination under the nervousness of the moment. It does not matter if you peruse the role, if you write down the course contents by hand, if you type them into the PC, or if you create index cards with questions and answers. Find a way which is optimal for you and repeatedly study what you have created. If you have completed the course in good time, you can to this more often and in the intervals, your brain will restructure and rework the new information. You will be fit on the day of the examination, you will facilitate the task of the MPU, i.e. you will be able to respond more easily.
You will profit from an effect which brain research has again and again confirmed. If a theme is presented in good time to brain processing and repeatedly taken up, you subconscious mind will use the time sensibly. It will anchor the contents in various ways in your thinking and feeling and will facilitate its recall.
Few days before the MPU you can check by means of a test examination if everything has solidly been memorized. Should you want to deepen one or the other aspect, you can sensibly use the time till the examination. If you are diligent and learn the subject matter, you can go into the examination confidently and without fear, for the expert will notice after a few questions that you have done your homework and that you are optimally prepared.
8. Final Choice of the MPU Institute and Realization of the MPU
In good time, you certainly have made a preliminary decision with respect to potential MPU institutes, maybe you already have opted for an institute, but you have hold back the final decision. For now, you can choose an institute and you want it to be the optimal one. If you have studied my website or asked other authorities, you will often hear that it depends much more on you than the expert if you get or don't get a positive expertise. This sentence is and will certainly be correct. And yet – who would dispute that – it is not the only truth. There are differences between the testing institutes and there are differences between the experts. I have always tried to honestly inform you on this web presence and I will not fool you now. Not every expert is optimally suited for every case resp. not everyone has the same skills to put him-/herself in your place, to help you, to suit you. This is normal, since experts as well are only humans: they have different opinions and life experiences.
Normally, an expert who does not feel comfortable with your case, will pass the file on to a colleague, or in a more serious case declare himself to be biased which will result in another expert to have to handle the case. But this is not always possible. First, it may be that the expert cannot avoid the case because no better qualified colleague is available; second, it may be that the expert realized only during the conversation that you do not suit him.
You want to avoid such a situation at all events. I know most experts personally or by their expert’s opinions. I know you and your case after the traffic psychological counseling very well and I can tell which institute or which expert has judged similar cases in the past in a qualified way. Although it is with the exception of rate cases normally not possible to choose the expert, it is well possible to increase the probability of a professional expert by choosing the right testing institute. Und this happens according to a very simple, understandable and legitimate mechanism. My colleagues and I regularly submit different cases to different testing institutes and thus, we permanently receive expert’s opinions and feedback about the treatment of our clients.
Should shortly before your examination a testing institute have hired an expert who turns out to be problematic or should a certain institute prevail due to its customer convenience or quality assurance, you could to the very end profit from it. Such a procedure is legitimate, since it promotes institutes which care for their clients.
This procedure helps you to present yourself to the expert in an open an cooperative way. For if you know that you will be looked after, that your concerns and worries will be taken seriously, and that you will get the time to express yourself in the conversation, you will be able to better respond and keep calm. You will be able to prevent that the MPU will turn into a burdening experience, and you will on the contrary be able to realize that the examination can free you. For the expert is the one who opens the way towards the driver's license making a big difference in your life. This is his duty but also your responsibility and thereby you have to help the expert.
9. Receiving the Expertise and Submitting it to the Driver's License Office
If you have done everything the correct way, i.e. if you followed our program, then your expertise should turn out positive. Nothing in life is absolute = 100 percent sure, and even my counseling cannot give you that guarantee. But it can grant you a high, very high probability of success. Or it can tell you the risk, if you need to quickly schedule the MPU due to professional or administrative reasons. Sometimes, if not all requirements for a strictly positive expertise are met, the expert can still head towards a compromise solution. He can issue a "legally binding" expertise meaning that after completing another measure, a group course, you will get the driver's license. In both cases you will be able to drive again: in the first case of a positive expertise instantly, in the second case of a legally binding expertise after the completion of the course.
Normally however, you can expect a positive expertise, because you have met the reliability periods, you have submitted all documents, you have positively changed your life and you have studies the contents of our course. The expert will confirm this and thus you have made it. Put the expertise as quickly as possible into your fax or call me. I can then instantly tell you if its result is favorable or if any documents are missing: for example if you have to do a driving test in case you had trouble with the performance test.
If you are sure that the expertise is positive, or if you have gain certainty after calling me, then you submit it to the driver's license office. Sometimes, it is necessary to fix an appointment with your clerk, sometimes it is sufficient if you personally appear at the office without registration. This is not important to you anymore. In your hand, you hold a positive expertise and with it a document which can give back to you the driver's license and the driving.
10. Obtaining the Driver's License and Happy Driving
So the expertise has turn out positive and you have submitted it to the driver's license office. Can anything go wrong now? Theoretically yes, since the driver's license office makes the final decision. It is legitimized to carefully check the expertise and it can refuse to issue the driver's license, if the expertise is not understandable. But don't be afraid. If you have done everything correctly, this case does not happen. The driver's license office will, if nothing serious conflicts with it, stick to the result of the expert and that means, it will hand over the driver's license to you: mostly on the day when you submit the expertise, if you have appeared early. Sometimes, the administration needs time to check your expertise. Sometimes you will receive a preliminary, and later a final driver's license. But you will receive this license!
Something else can go wrong and you want to avoid that. You should avoid receiving the license and then relapsing. Therefore I wish that you internalize and keep all that what you have learned in my course and what you have later on change in your life. Then, you will never again have problems with your driver's license and will keep it permanently because you have turned into a good driver.