San Diego DUI lawyer info

From the perspective of someone experienced in treating alcohol and substance abuse, San Miguel County Coroner's alcohol and impaired driving views are discussed.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines daily drinking limits as “no more than four standard drinks a day for men and no more than three a day for women. Weekly limits are no more than 14 standard drinks a week for men and seven for women.” DHHS defines binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking alcohol that brings blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 gram-percent or above. For a typical adult this pattern corresponds to consuming five or more drinks (male), or four or more drinks (female) in about 2 hours.”

Responsible, moderate drinkers will never reach a .120 percent BAC, let alone drive at that level.

Both nationally and in Colorado, Driving Under the Influence, or DUI, is defined as a BAC over .08 percent. Colorado also has a misdemeanor offense of Driving While Ability Impaired, or DWAI, which is defined as having a blood alcohol content of between .05 percent and .08 percent. These limits are based on research which demonstrates that the relative risk of causing an accident is stable from a baseline of zero BAC up to about .04 percent. At .05 percent, a person is 1.8 times more likely to cause a wreck. At .08 percent, the average driver is 3.2 times more likely to do so. At .12 percent, the average driver is 7.1 times more likely to cause a crash than a sober driver.

As a sample, I pulled 16 active San Miguel County DUI cases at random. I excluded three in which the defendant refused a breath or blood test. Out of the remaining 13 there were four first offenders, two second offenders, six third offenders and one fifth offender. The average BAC was .193 percent, almost four times the legal limit. Their BACs at arrest are comparable to those recorded at the time of the impaired driver’s death as cited by Dempsey. Perhaps the only difference between the two groups was that a diligent deputy or marshal exercised his or her duty to get them off the road before they or their victim(s) ended up on a slab in the coroner’s office.

Many people drive drunk because they rely on an intoxicated brain to decide whether they are safe to drive. The reality is that most people underestimate their BACs and don’t understand that the BAC continues to rise for at least 30 minutes after they stop drinking. You don’t want to find this out the hard way. Remember that the effect alcohol has on you depends on factors such as how much you’ve eaten, altitude, exhaustion, dehydration, age, weight, experience and other drugs in your system. Only time will remove alcohol from your system. Remember Project Home Safe and take the bus. Call a friend or family member. Call a cab or a limo. Call law enforcement. Walk. Take the gondola. Couch Surf. Ride your bicycle. Ride your skateboard. Accept the parking ticket. Almost anything is safer and cheaper than trying to make it home drunk in your car.