Documents for the Informative Consultation
What do we need in the first meeting?
Basically, it is best to bring to the first meeting all documents that you have collected in the MPU issue. This enables me to quickly see how your case presents itself to a specialist, which steps have already been taken and which are still pending. Below, I will provide you with a couple of clues.
Don't, however, hesitate to call me if you are missing documents. In most cases, it is possible to obtain all relevant information from the driver's license office. I will gladly make that call for you.
1. Penalty Orders, Infringements, Court Sentences
Bring along all documents which you have obtained from the police, the court, or the penalty administration. In the case of alcohol violations, this is generally the penalty order which contains the time of the violation and the per-mille value, or the notification of the infringement. In drug cases, one sometimes has next to the last mentioned document to deal with court sentences or a police protocol. Issues concerning traffic regulations typically involve a point abstract from Flensburg. If legal objections are at stake, the court sentence contains the relevant information.
2. Correspondence of your Lawyer
Often, a lawyer is already involved in your case and has supported you. His written statements are of course important as well, for they show, how the contact with the driver's license office, or maybe even the MPU institute have evolved in the past. Although you are certainly free to be legally represented, and although is sometimes is recommendable, you should play that trump with due consideration. Good lawyers can mediate and win you valuable time, bad lawyers can harden the attitudes and divert you from your goal. Independent of your prehistory, there will always be a constructive solution if you are willing to cooperate, and the expert is less interested in what has been than in what now speaks in your favor.
3. Writings from the Driver's License Office
Do you belong to the happy ones whose attention has been called very soon to the possibility of a traffic-psychological coaching? Then you can collect in good time important documents of your rehabilitation and present them to the driver's license office. Even though the MPU itself is often not avoidable, for the MPU order is a formal act which grants the clerk of the driver's license office little latitude, the path towards it can be paved in a considerably more pleasant way. If you cooperate, the clerk in duty can and will do everything in his power and you should not underestimate that chance.
You probably, however, belong to the majority of those who a few months before the end of the waiting period have received a writing of the driver's license office asking you to present an expertise. Definitely bring this writing to our informative consultation. For is has to name the incidents you are charged with, and it often explains in detail why a MPU is necessary. It contains important facts about your case, and it commits itself to the assessment cause, i.e. it determines the administrative request and thus decides which questions an expert is allow to put to you.
Let us take the frequent case of a client who has apart from a drunk driving committed a hit-and-run offence in the same night, or who eventually has had no driver's license. Maybe a battle of words has happened which has now entered the legal file as an offence of insult or of police obstruction. Since besides the alcohol theme we have a case of lack of responsibility or of aggression, the driver's license office could in addition to a pure alcohol MPU question your fitness in character and thus widen the cause of assessment. Often, however, the documents show that the wrongdoing was a consequence of the loss of control being drunk. If you have never violated the law before and if you do not exhibit an accumulation of points in Flensburg, you have good chances that the driver's license office will restrict itself to the alcohol theme. The letter that you receive shows the decision, and of course I do not have to tell you that by early contacting a traffic psychologist, by optimally cooperating, and by proving a positive development, borderline cases can be decided in your favor. This is not reprehensible, since a clerk can take a qualified individual counseling, a detailed document of change which extenuates the client, as important evidence in his decision.
Let us take up this example. If the driver's license office restricts itself to the alcohol question, the expert's hands are tied as well. He may only question you on this subject matter, and he will not say a word about your traffic violations (e.g. speeding) or your style of driving. The traffic-psychological counseling will be less expensive, for we can save the extra sessions.
4. Medical Evidence
Medical evidence is mostly required in alcohol or drugs scenarios. If favorable, it can, even must exonerate you. Bring these documents with you. I can then check if they already meet the needs of the MPU, or if further evidence is necessary. On the web pages "Abstinence Proof Alcohol" and "Abstinence Proof Drugs" you will find additional important information. The earlier and more complete these proofs, the better.
5. Other Evidence
Certificates of therapy, of self-help groups, of your employer, and other statements belong to this group. While experts appreciate the first two kinds of writings which can indeed improve your chances in a MPU, we should carefully consider confirmations of your employer. Of course they can be a testimony to the reliability of a client, the employer can even show his interest in keeping the recipient, but often, such a text will meet restraint, even sometimes objection, on the side of the expert. It is considered as clouded by interest, little objective, a pure sign of favor. Some experts even take it as a shady intervention in the own process of decision finding. But I also know the opposite: if an employer has openly talked about the former weaknesses of a worker (e.g. alcohol at work) and if he then substantiates positive changes (here the abstinence), improved motivation to work and efficiency, such a certificate might have been valuable. Bring along what you have. I can then find out if will help you in a MPU or not.
Summary
I hope that these examples have given you a first impression about what is relevant to me and later the expert. Don't be concerned too much about which of these documents are important and which not. Take along everything you have to our informative consultation. My former work as expert and my present work as traffic-psychological counselor have taught me to quickly and efficiently scan for the relevant information. And then, the real work begins. We have to find out what else you need, and how you can go into the MPU as quickly, but especially as safely as possible. And this also is the objective of the informative consultation.