Ok, you’ve had two glasses of wine with dinner and it’s time to head home. You feel fine, but throw down a couple of cups of coffee to clear your head just to be sure. Then you pay the bill, walk out to your car, get behind the wheel — and one [...]

Drunk driving is bad.  It’s potentially dangerous to human life.  It should be punished.  So, many years ago a law was passed:  "Thou shalt not drive drunk". It was a fair law and it addressed the problem.  So…what happened?  Why do today’s laws punish drivers when they are neither "drunk" nor "driving" — nor even in a [...]

Test

It is an unfortunate fact that law and politics repeatedly trump science when it comes to prosecuting citizens accused of drunk driving….. In People v. Bransford, to cite one notable example, the California Supreme Court was confronted with a defendant who was challenging his DUI conviction on the grounds that he was [...]

When a person is arrested for DUI, his driver’s license is confiscated by the arresting officer and he is given a notice of "administrative suspension". He is also given a citation to appear in court to face criminal drunk driving charges. These are usually two very different procedures: (1) the administrative [...]

So you got stopped last night and arrested for drunk driving. And right after the Breathalyzer showed a blood-alcohol reading of .09%, the officer confiscated your driver’s license and gave you an official notice of immediate suspension. "What happened?", you ask. Can they do that? I thought I was presumed to be innocent, and the state [...]

I’ve commented repeatedly in the past about how DUI roadblocks (MADD prefers the less oppressive term "sobriety checkpoints") are inefficient at apprehending drunk drivers.  See Do DUI Roadblocks Work?,  Do DUI Roadblocks Work (Part II),  As a means of apprehending drunk drivers, even law enforcement admits they are only effective as a deterrent — i.e., [...]

A recent university study confirms earlier research indicating that consuming energy drinks while drinking alcohol can reduce the symptoms and sensations of intoxication from the alcohol. Study Links Alcoholic Energy Drinks to Intoxication, Drunk Driving Feb. 11 — Bar patrons who consumed energy drinks mixed with alcohol were three times more likely to leave drunk and four [...]

As readers of this blog are aware, one of my pet peeves is the public’s blind trust in the little metal boxes that analyze a DUI suspect’s breath and spit out a number that supposedly represents the amount of alcohol in his blood.  The simple, scientifically proven fact is that all the various models of [...]

I wrote a couple of months ago about a growing number of false blood-alcohol tests that had been discovered in the Colorado Springs Metro Crime Lab.  At the time, about 1,000 tests were suspect, of which 82 had been confirmed as being falsely high.  See Hundreds in Denver Possibly Convicted with Falsely High Blood Tests.  The [...]

In the "Who will guard the guardians?" department… Activists want penalties for cops who protect colleagues who drive drunk Tuckahoe, NJ.  Jan. 20 — Reacting to a Journal News report in which 10 local police officers admitted anonymously that cops often give other cops a break when they are found driving drunk, (Tuckahoe Police Chief) Costanzo and [...]

A few minutes ago I posted about an arrest yesterday for driving a golf cart under the influence.  Then I stumbled over this news story from the same day: Man on Bicycle Charged with DUI Naples, FL.  Jan. 26 — A Tampa man riding a bicycle was charged with driving under the influence [...]

If you ever doubted that MADD’s "War on Drunk Driving" was more about alcohol than saving lives… Man on Golf Cart Arrested for Drunk Driving Bonifay, FL.  Jan. 26 — Florida State Troopers were on the scene of a fatal accident on County Road 177 Tuesday afternoon when Jerry Ogburn drove up on a golf cart just [...]

So where do we go next in MADD’s hysterical War on Drunk Driving? Craig’s List DUI Busters Milwaukee, WI.  Jan. 22 — We’re all fed up with drunk drivers. Some people on the popular website Craigslist have decided they’ve had enough, and they want to put a stop to it. They call themselves the DUI Busters, but [...]

So you thought the crime of drunk driving required….well, driving? High court: Asleep at wheel, not driving, enough to get a DWI Minneapolis, MN.  Jan. 21 — Being drunk and asleep at the wheel of his car while it was parked in his apartment lot with the keys on the console was sufficient evidence to convict a [...]