DUI True / False

1.If I am sitting in my car and am impaired, but the car is off and the keys are not in
the ignition, I cannot get arrested for DUI.

False. Florida law prohibits being impaired and driving OR being in actual physical control of a vehicle. Therefore, even if you are not driving and had not driven a car when the officer stops you, and hadn’t drive a car at all, if you are in the driver’s seat and have the physical ability to start and operate the car, the officer can arrest you for DUI.

2.If I get pulled over and I blow below a 0.08, the police will let me go.

False. The officer will not, and cannot ask you to provide a breath sample at the side of the road. The only authorized breath test a law enforcement officer can conduct takes place at the jail – after you have already been arrested! If you blow below a 0.08, you will not be un-arrested. Moreover, Florida law gives the State two ways to convict a person of DUI. One is if the person drove a vehicle with a BAC over 0.08. However, the State can also prove a DUI conviction by showing that a person drove (or was in actual physical control of) a vehicle “while under the influence to the extent their normal faculties were impaired.” Thus, you can be arrested, and even convicted of a DUI even if you blow below a 0.08.

3. If I am taking a prescription medication, and have a valid prescription for it, I cannot get a DUI for driving after taking my medication.

False. If you are impaired by medication, even medication for which you have a valid prescription, you still can be arrested and convicted of a DUI.

4. When I am asked by the police officer whether I will provide a breath sample, the officer may tell me that if I blow over a 0.08, I will lose my license for Six months.

True. The officer may tell you that blowing over a 0.08 will result in your license being suspended for six months. However, the law enforcement officer is not under an obligation to notify you of this.

5.If I blow over a 0.08, my license will be suspended for six months.

True. If you blow over a 0.08, the police officer acting as an agent of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, will confiscate your physical license, and your license will be administratively suspended for six months unless you successfully challenge the suspension in a formal hearing.

6.If I blow over a 0.08, I will not be able to drive for six months.

False. If you blow over a 0.08, you may be eligible for a hardship license 30 days after your license was suspended. In fact, you may even be eligible for a hardship immediately after being arrested, with no loss of driving privileges.

7. If I refuse a breath test, the officer will advise me that my driver’s license will be
suspended for a year, or 18 months if I have previously refused to take a sobriety test.

True. Florida has a law called “Implied Consent.” It says that by driving a vehicle in Florida, you have implicitly given consent for any lawful sobriety test. If you are asked for such a test and you refuse, the officer must read you the Implied Consent Warning which states, in part, that if you refuse to provide a sobriety test, your license will be suspended for a year, or 18 months if you have previously refused.

8. If I refuse to provide a breath or urine sample upon request by a law enforcement officer, my license actually will be suspended for a year or 18 months if I have previously refused.

True. If you refuse to submit to a sobriety test, the police officer acting as an agent of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, will confiscate your physical license, and your license will be administratively suspended for one year, or 18 months if you have previously refused such a test, unless you successfully challenge the suspension in a formal hearing.

9. If I refuse to provide a breath or urine sample upon request by a law enforcement officer, I will not be able to drive for a year, or 18 months if I have previously refused a sobriety test.

False. You may be eligible for a hardship license 90 days after your suspension, or even in some cases immediately.

10.It is legal to refuse to provide a breath sample.

False. If you refuse to provide a breath sample, you are violating an administrative regulation and your license will be suspended as a result. Moreover, if you have previously refused to provide a breath sample, a second or subsequent refusal is itself a misdemeanor for which you can be charged independently of any DUI offense. In other words, even if you are not guilty of DUI, you can still be charged and convicted of a crime!

11.The police can pull me over for no reason just to see if I am impaired.

False. The police have to have a valid reason to stop your vehicle. However, the threshold for what constitutes a valid stop is very low. If the police observe any traffic infraction at all, that provides them with a lawful justification for stopping your vehicle. For example, if a police officer notices that your license plate light is out, that is a sufficient basis to conduct a traffic stop, even if the real reason the officer stopped you is to see if you are impaired.

12. A police officer has to see some indication that you are driving impaired, such as
weaving, inexplicable speeding up and slowing down, or stopping beyond a intersection marker, in order to conduct a lawful traffic stop.

False. As long as the police observe a traffic infraction – even a non-moving violation like an inoperable tail light, the officer can conduct a traffic stop.

13. If I blow over a 0.08, there is no use in fighting a DUI conviction.

False. There are always a number of challenges that can be brought to defend against a DUI conviction. For example, an experienced DUI attorney will be able to determine if the police violated your rights in conducting the stop of the vehicle. If the Judge rules the stop was illegal, all the evidence after that stop will be off limits to the State – and your DUI case will likely be reduced to a less severe charge or completely dropped – even if you have a very high breath reading. There are also a number of challenges that can be brought to the accuracy of the breath test machine. There is always hope. There are always defenses.

14. If I am arrested for DUI, it is important that I consult with an experienced DUI attorney as soon as I can after I get out of jail.

True. One of the most important considerations someone facing a DUI charge has to make is whether to ask for a formal hearing or to waive a formal hearing. You only have 10 days after your arrest to make that decision. If you do not ask for or waive your right to a formal hearing within 10 days, you have forfeited the right to do either. As a result, you lose the benefit of a formal hearing (of which there are many) and you also lose the right to apply immediately for a hardship license – and you have gotten nothing in return. Don’t let the ten day deadline expire. Get with an experience DUI attorney as soon as you can.

15. It is illegal to drink and drive in Florida.

False. It is illegal to be under the influence to the extent your normal faculties are impaired and drive (or be in actual physical control of) a vehicle. A DUI officer will always write that his probable cause was based, in part, on the smell of alcohol on the person’s breath. There are numerous problems with such statements. First, alcohol has no odor, so the officer cannot smell alcohol on anyone’s breath. Any odor is from the other ingredients in an alcoholic drink, not the alcohol itself. Moreover, even if the person does have the odor of an alcoholic beverage on their breath, that is evidence of consumption of alcohol. However, the odor alone cannot determine how recently a person consumed alcohol, or how much they consumed. Consequently, the odor of alcohol on one’s breath is not evidence of any crime because it is not illegal to drive after you have been drinking in Florida.

16.If the officer wants me to do field sobriety exercises, I have no choice. I have to do them.

False. You may lawfully refuse to participate in field sobriety exercises. Moreover, unlike refusing a breath test, your license will not be automatically suspended for refusing to do the exercises. However, your refusal to do those exercises will be used by the officer in making his decision as to whether he has probable cause to arrest you. (In other words, if you refuse you will be arrested. However, if you are at the point where an officer asks you to do such exercises, you probably will be arrested whether you do them or not.) Your refusal will also be used by the prosecutor as evidence that you were conscious of your guilt, which is why you refused to do them.

17. Police have special training which allows them to detect impairment in drivers.

False. While police and prosecutors will claim that the police have such training, that claim has been shown to be false. Contrary to what police and prosecutors might claim, even law enforcement officers that have undergone special training do not have any more ability to determine impairment than ordinary citizens. Police and DUI prosecutors will often suggest to jurors that officers who have undergone specialized training specific to DUI detection have a greater ability to determine when a person suspect is under the influence of alcohol, and therefore jurors should rely on the officer’s opinion that the defendant was, in fact, impaired. A controlled study conducted by Rutgers University’s Alcohol Behavior Research Laboratory determined that claim is false. Law enforcement officers’ ability to determine a person’s level of impairment was no more accurate than that of bartenders or social drinkers. More importantly, none of the three groups of individuals – experienced police officers, bartenders and social drinkers – correctly judged levels of intoxication more than 25 percent
of the time. In other words, even cops got it wrong 75 percent of the time.

18. If I am arrested for DUI, it will just be the cop’s word against mine.

False. Most often, DUI arrests are videotaped with audio. That means you will be able to actually see what the police officer did, see how you performed on field sobriety tests, and compare the video to the police officer’s written report. To the extent that there are inconsistencies, that undermines the credibility of the police officer which helps your case. Moreover, video and audio evidence is always very powerful and persuasive. Therefore, if you do not appear or sound impaired on the video, that may help you avoid a DUI conviction even if the police officer’s report says you were impaired.

19. I was drunk, so I didn’t drive. I road my bicycle to the bar, instead. I am safe.

False. You can be convicted of a DUI if you are operating a vehicle. In Florida, a bicycle is considered a vehicle. Therefore, you can get arrested and convicted of a DUI while riding a bike.

20. If I refuse a breath test, the police officers can force me to take a blood test in order to determine my BAC.

False. Law enforcement may only take blood to determine a person’s BAC if the person is involved in a car accident involving serious bodily injury or death, and the police officer has reasonable suspicion that the person was driving while impaired. Law enforcement may even use reasonable force to help authorized medical personnel take your blood to determine your BAC, even if you do not provide consent to do so.

21.If I show signs of impairment, but blow below a 0.08, the officer may ask that I provide a urine sample, and if I refuse, it will be just as if I refused to provide a breath sample.

True. If an officer observes impairment that is inconsistent with the breath test results, that officer may suspect impairment by drugs other than alcohol. In such a situation, the officer may ask you to provide a urine sample. Driving a vehicle in Florida constitutes consent to submit to any sobriety test, not just a breath test. Thus, if you refuse to provide a urine sample upon request, your license will be suspended just as if you refused to provide a breath sample.