§ 383.51(a) states the consequence before the offenses, and it states it on both sides: a person required to have a commercial learner’s permit or a commercial driver’s license who is disqualified must not drive a commercial motor vehicle, and an employer must not knowingly allow, require, permit or authorize a disqualified driver to. Then come three rules that decide far more cases than the offense list does. A holder is subject to these sanctions if they drive a CMV OR A NON-CMV and are convicted of a listed violation — your own car is inside this section. In counting first and subsequent violations, each conviction for any listed offense resulting from a SEPARATE INCIDENT counts, whether committed in a commercial vehicle or not. And the disqualification period must be IN ADDITION to any previous periods, so they stack rather than run together.

The major-offense table at § 383.51(b) lists them, and the same offense carries different periods depending on what was being driven — with several of them, including the 0.04 alcohol concentration offense and causing a fatality through negligent operation, marked not applicable in the non-CMV columns because they can only be committed in a commercial motor vehicle. Being under the influence of alcohol as prescribed by State law; being under the influence of a controlled substance; having an alcohol concentration of 0.04 or greater while operating a commercial motor vehicle; refusing to take an alcohol test required under a State’s implied consent laws; leaving the scene of an accident; using the vehicle to commit a felony; driving a commercial motor vehicle when your permit or license is revoked, suspended or canceled, or you are disqualified, as a result of prior violations committed operating one; and causing a fatality through negligent operation of a commercial motor vehicle. A first conviction carries 1 year — 3 years if the vehicle was transporting hazardous materials as § 383.5 defines them — and a second conviction, in a separate incident, of any combination of offenses in that table carries LIFE. Two offenses stand apart from that pattern entirely: using the vehicle in the commission of a felony involving manufacturing, distributing or dispensing a controlled substance, and using a commercial motor vehicle in the commission of a felony involving severe forms of trafficking in persons. Both are life, and both are marked not eligible for the 10-year reinstatement.

That reinstatement is § 383.51(a)(6) and it is a permission rather than an entitlement. A State MAY reinstate a driver disqualified for life for the offenses in the major-offense table after 10 years, if that person has voluntarily entered and successfully completed an appropriate rehabilitation program approved by the State — and a person reinstated that way who is subsequently convicted of another offense in it must not be reinstated again. Note who holds it: the State, at its discretion, not the driver by right. § 383.51(a)(7) adds that a foreign commercial driver is subject to disqualification under the subpart, and § 383.53 sits behind all of it — a person who violates subparts B or C may be subject to civil or criminal penalties under 49 U.S.C. 521(b) as provided in Part 386, and a driver convicted of violating an out-of-service order faces a civil penalty in addition to the disqualification § 383.51(e) imposes.