Collin County DUI Guide

Most Texas counties hand a suspended driver a fixed schedule for an Occupational Driver's License: drive from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m., nothing outside that window, and a 6:15 p.m. drive home from a traffic jam becomes a new crime. Collin County Court at Law No. 1 does it differently. Its standing order lets the driver carry a spiral notebook instead, logging trip times and mileage against a 12-hour cap within any rolling 24-hour period — meaning a 10 p.m. grocery run or an unplanned errand doesn't violate anything, as long as the day's 12 hours haven't run out and the logbook is current the moment a patrol officer asks to see it.

The License Suspension Clock

The ALR hearing request is due within 15 calendar days of the DIC-25 notice, filed online, by fax to 512-424-2650, or by certified mail to Austin — there's no local drop-off option at either the Collin County Courthouse or a DPS office, despite what many residents assume. Filing on time stays the suspension entirely, and because the SOAH Dallas docket routinely runs three to six months behind, that stay can buy real time to resolve the criminal case first.

The venue itself is a genuine trap. The hearing isn't held at the McKinney courthouse or any local Justice of the Peace court — it's the SOAH Dallas Field Office on Stemmons Freeway, and almost all hearings now run by Zoom rather than in person. Showing up in the wrong city, or missing the Zoom waiting room by even a few minutes before docket call, gets treated as a no-show and ends in a default judgment. Blood-draw cases work on a longer fuse: DPS can't issue the suspension notice until lab results come back, so the 15-day (in that case, effectively later) clock starts only once the mailed notice actually goes out to whatever address is on file with DPS.

Once a suspension takes hold, the ODL petition filed with the County Courts at Law grants driving privileges the moment the judge signs it, valid for 45 days while the paperwork and SR-22 filing route through DPS in Austin for a physical card. If DPS is backlogged and the card doesn't arrive before that 45-day window closes, the court order simply expires and the driver is suspended again until they go back to court for an amended order.

Getting the Car Back

Plano PD and the Collin County Sheriff's Office both route non-consent tows to Signature Towing, which runs vehicles in and out of its lot at 1204 Municipal Avenue 24 hours a day. Because Plano negotiated its own municipal rate, a standard light-duty tow runs closer to $99-$146 rather than the $272 state maximum, though a complex accident-recovery tow can still land at the higher bracket. Storage runs the standard $22.85 a day, and the 12-hour rule still applies: a car towed at 10 p.m. and picked up by 11 a.m. the next morning only owes for one day, even though it touched two calendar dates.

Retrieving the car takes four things: photo ID matching the name on the title, proof of ownership (or a notarized Power of Attorney, or the TDLR's "Affidavit of Right of Possession" if the paperwork is locked inside the car), full payment, and current proof of insurance for that specific vehicle. The insurance requirement trips people up more than any other — Texas law flatly won't let a VSF release a car to be driven off the lot without it. The workaround, if a policy has lapsed, is a "tow-out": hiring a second licensed tow truck, which carries its own cargo insurance, to move the car from the impound lot to a driveway or repair shop instead of driving it away directly.

A tow believed to be illegal, or fees that exceed the statutory caps, can be challenged at a hearing before the Collin County Justice of the Peace covering the precinct where the tow happened — Precinct 3 (Judge Mike Missildine) for central and east Plano, Precinct 4 for Frisco and west Plano. The filing deadline is 14 days, calculated in business days rather than straight calendar days, and paying the fees to get the car out immediately doesn't waive the right to still file for a hearing afterward. Anyone who can't afford the roughly $54 filing fee can submit a Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs to get it waived.