DUI And Authorities
01 Oct 2009
If you are under the influence (DUI) and are caught and stopped by the authorities, it should not be taken lightly by anyone since chances are you will not get away with it.
There is a good reason that so many people have been worried about DUI. It is the cause of many fatal accidents and affects the lives of many innocent people, as well as the offender. To make matters worse, it is legal for an adult to drink how much they want to and that only increases the number of drivers on the road who are under the influence.
A common mistake made by drivers under the influence is that they still think they are capable of driving normally and therefore will never be noticed by the police. However, that is most untrue. In fact, the best drivers around will drive crooked if they are intoxicated due to alcohol consumption. This makes it easy to detect vehicles on the road that are being driven by someone who is under the influence of some substance.
Traffic authorities have different ways and means to detect whether a person is drunk or intoxicated from drugs or other neural compounds. One of their ways is by administering a test to measure the amount of alcohol content in the blood. This is also known as BAC. This is measured as the percentage of alcohol in the blood. In the United States, driving with a BAC of 0.08% or higher is illegal and the any driver found to have a BAC ranging in this percentage will be held liable for an offense.
Another test that traffic authorities administer in determining if the driver is intoxicated is through a Breathalyzer. As the name implies, it involves analyzing the breath of the driver. This is usually done at the time that authorities apprehend violators. Drivers are asked to literally blow some air into a device that reads the blood-alcohol-concentration and if it does not fall in the range of being drunk, the driver is free to go.
Some other officers without Breathalyzers would require drivers to take laboratory test such as urine tests to determine the amount of alcohol in the body of the drivers.
If determined to be intoxicated the driver will then be punished with the penalties under the law of the state they are in. These penalties for a DUI vary by state and one state may have harsher consequences than another. The severity of the penalty also depends on whether or not prior DUI offenses have been committed. The first offense is often lighter than it is for subsequent offenses.
In some states the severity of the charge can vary for the offender depending on age with leniency, to a degree, for minors whereas the grown adult will not.
In the past years, DUI cases have become rampant that authorities have enforced more means in preventing and apprehending drivers while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. More awareness campaigns were done in order to have minors and adults alike learn of the dangers of DUI. The government and the citizens must all work hand in hand to prevent more DUI related incidents in the future.