The idea of being associated with DUI can be extremely upsetting to some. If you’ve ever been wrongly accused of DUI, then you’ve no doubt come away from the experience with a fair degree of resentment towards police officers and perhaps the law on a whole. Although the DUI laws throughout the country are extremely strict, it’s important to realize that as a civilian driver, you do have certain rights when it comes to matters along these lines. On the other hand, it’s also necessary to recognize that when it comes to DUI accusations, it is your obligation to prove your innocence.
In many cases, a DUI accusation tends to go hand in hand with being asked to take a breathalyzer (or any similar sort of test to measure your blood alcohol concentration). Whether you happen to be sober, semi-sober, or completely and utterly drunk at the time, it’s rarely a good idea to refuse to submit to a breathalyzer, as the penalties for doing so are fairly extreme. It’s also important to understand that when an officer asks you to take a breathalyzer, there is generally a good reason for it.
Charles Nistico of the firm Nistico Roberts, P.C. is an experienced DUI lawyer who has been serving Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Bucks counties for more than 30 years, and according to him, if a police officer has a reasonable basis for asking you to take a breathalyzer test, then that’s all he really needs to pursue his suspicion. So what does “reasonable” mean? Essentially, any behavior on your part that might be construed as drunk driving is enough to prompt a police officer to request a breathalyzer test.
Of course, some of the criteria for requesting that someone take a breathalyzer are a bit more obvious than others. If an officer sees a car weaving in and out of traffic or moving excessively slowly in light of the speed limit and surrounding conditions, then he is allowed to pull the driver over and investigate further. If the officer then observes that the driver has bloodshot eyes, is speaking slowly or in a slurred fashion, and smells of alcohol, then he can use those factors as one collective reason to request that the driver undergo a breathalyzer test.
On the other hand, not every breathalyzer request is borne of such obvious circumstantial evidence. Since all it takes is a “reasonable” suspicion for an officer to be allowed to insist on a breathalyzer, there have been instances in the past that have bordered on abuses of power, and there’s a good chance that such situations might continue to occasionally spring up in the future. For example, an officer might stop a driver and, upon questioning him, observe none of the sure signs of alcohol consumption. On the other hand, it’s not unthinkable that an officer might use a person’s nervous or belligerent responses to questioning as a basis for insisting that he undergo a blood alcohol test. In such situations, such demands might technically fall under the category of “reasonable” in the eyes of the law, but that doesn’t necessarily make them valid. After all, it’s natural for a person to grow anxious or even angry upon being falsely accused of driving while under the influence of alcohol, and there’s clearly a difference between a person smelling of alcohol and simply acting defensive out of sheer nerves alone.
When it comes to DUI accusations, the reality is that it really doesn’t take much for an officer to be justified in asking you to take a breathalyzer test. Therefore, if you happen to find yourself in the situation, then it’s almost always best to simply comply rather than face the consequences inherent in a refusal. Although the law might not seem totally fair, it’s important to remember that most police officers who ask drivers to take breathalyzer tests end up doing so under perfectly legitimate circumstances. And while the occasional abuse of power or degree of error might come into play, it’s generally a whole lot better for the law to err on the side of caution when it comes to blood alcohol tests and the consequences involved.
This article is for informational purposes only. You should not rely on this article as a legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances, and you should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Publication of this article and your receipt of this article does not create an attorney-client relationship.
