When you drink and drive, you’re compromising cognitive ability and responsiveness, which increases your risk for an accident. Get caught, and a single drunk driving infraction may have legal, financial, personal and even professional ramifications. The Governors Highway Safety Association has state by state information about consequences of drinking and driving. It also provides a state by state breakdown of alcohol-impaired driving laws. Drivers who have driven drunk in the past and then drive again often end up in fatal crashes. According to the CDC, drivers with a blood alcohol content of .08% or higher that were involved in fatal crashes were six times more likely to have a prior conviction for DWI than drivers with no alcohol in their system.
- Rearrests for drunk driving are decreased by almost 70% when alcohol ignition interlocks are installed.
- Most states have set the legal BAC limit for driving at 0.08 grams of alcohol per deciliter (g/dL); the limit is 0.05 g/dL in Utah.1 However, impairment starts at lower BAC levels.
- They can challenge the validity of field sobriety tests or breathalyzer results, argue for reduced charges or alternative sentencing options, and negotiate plea deals with prosecutors.
- Motorcycle operators involved in fatal crashes were found to have the highest percentage (28%) of alcohol-impaired drivers than any other vehicle types.
- Some states have opted to avoid any confusion about where DUI laws apply by extending the reach of their laws to all areas within the state.
Driving After Drinking
About one third of all drivers arrested or convicted of drunk driving are repeat offenders. All states have some form of administrative revocation laws, often called implied consent laws. Essentially, when a person is lawfully arrested for impaired driving, he or she is required to take a chemical test of breath, blood, or urine if requested to do so by an officer. The purpose of this testing is, of course, to determine the presence and amount of alcohol or drugs in the driver’s system.
DUI and DWI Penalties
Poor judgment can lead to speeding, running red lights, and other risky driving maneuvers. This is especially dangerous when your vision, coordination, and reaction time are also impaired. You may experience some loss of judgement after just two drinks, while significant impaired judgment occurs at a BAC of .08%. You may also experience a decline in your self-control and reasoning at this level of intoxication.
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A DUI conviction normally carries possible imprisonment, fines, and license-related penalties. State laws establish the penalty ranges based on the number of prior DUI convictions as well as other aggravating factors. A DUI based on BAC level is often called a “per se DUI.” Some states also have per se limits on the concentration of certain drugs and controlled substances in the driver’s system. For example, a driver in Washington can be convicted of a per se DUI for operating a vehicle with a THC concentration (marijuana) of 5 nanograms or more per milliliter of blood. Mothers against Drunk Driving (MADD) is the nation’s largest nonprofit working to protect families from impaired driving and underage drinking. During the Labor Day holiday period, we typically see an increase in drunk-driving deaths — and that’s why you’ll likely see more law enforcement on the roads.
Alcohol and driving is a dangerous and frequently deadly combination. About one-third of fatal car crashes in the United States in 2019 involved drunk drivers. Every day, 29 people in the U.S. die in an alcohol-related consequences of driving drunk include: car crash, equaling one preventable death every 50 minutes. In some jurisdictions, first-time DUI offenders may be required to install an ignition interlock device (IID) on their vehicle.
How to Prevent Drunk Driving
Just How Dangerous is Drunk Driving, Really?
- The trend in numerous states is also to charge individuals with multiple DUI offenses with felony convictions after they have been arrested many times for DUIs or similar offenses (most often, three times or more).
- Not only to the driver, but also to those on the road around the driver operating the vehicle.
- Alcohol impairs your coordination when you reach a BAC of .05%, or about three drinks.
- These convictions typically come with sentences ranging from two years to a lifetime in prison.
- Of those motorcycle riders, 1,705 (29%) were drunk (BAC of .08 g/dL or higher).
