The Registry of Motor Vehicles imposes harsh license suspensions for holders of Junior Operator’s Licenses who commit traffic violations. For example, if a junior operator is found responsible for speeding, the Registry will suspend the junior operator’s license for 90 days and the JOL holder will be required to take the State Courts Against Road Rage (SCARR) program as well as the 8 hour National Safety Council Driver Re-Training program as a condition of reinstatement. Also, the JOL license holder will be required to pay a reinstatement fee, apply for a learner’s permit, take a written test, and re-take the road test prior to getting reinstated. You cannot get a hardship license by going before the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Instead, you must appeal to the Board of Appeal of the Division of Insurance.
In addition to imposing suspensions for speeding, the Registry will suspend junior operator’s licenses for having unauthorized passengers and drag racing.
The Board of Appeal is used to hearing hardship license appeals from adults who desperately need hardship licenses in order to support their families. Compared with these serious hardships, an inability to get to school, a part-time job, or extra curricular activities might appear rather minor. Also, accident crash data has shown that JOL license suspensions are an effective deterrent. Therefore, the Board is reluctant to afford relief to JOL violators, believing that they should “learn their lesson” early on.
I have obtained reinstatements in some JOL speeding cases, although I take relatively few JOL cases because of the low likelihood of success.