What happens on a second refusal?

A second or subsequent refusal is charged one degree higher than a first. Up to twelve months, a $1,000 fine, and an eighteen-month administrative suspension rather than one year.

What counts as a prior varies more than people assume. The enhancement reaches a person whose driving privilege was previously suspended for a refusal, and also a person previously fined for refusing testing after a boating-under-the-influence arrest. A prior refusal doesn't require a prior DUI conviction.

The State proves the prior with department records, and those records create a rebuttable presumption of the prior suspension. Rebuttable is the operative word — records contain errors, and the identity and the date both have to be right.

Note that the old framing of this question is now obsolete. This isn't where criminal exposure begins; it's where it escalates.