NOBODY SHOULD GET AWAY WITH DUI! Disgusting! Why don’t you tell people how to get away with being a child serial killer? How many people do drunk drivers kill every year? Shoot the bastards
@@Jackaroo. you can literally be arrested for anything the cops decide in the moment and will most likely have to wait until your day in court to prove otherwise.
There's some special "training" cops can certify in that the officer can ascertain that an individual is under the influence by some arbitrary list. This training is not based, much less backed by science, but people's lives have been ruined by this despite being sober and verified by traditional means like urine and blood tests
I am not a lawyer, so my experience is necessarily limited, but everything I've read about interactions with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and even small-claims courts, has given me the impression that judges don't particularly like cheap tricks designed to mess with evidence, and this trick would *certainly* fall under that category.
😂😂 I got drunk on one glass of wine, out to dinner with Mom. Told her she'd have to drive me home. (I almost never drink and I find in general I react much more strongly to alcohol than other people. This was the peak, though.)
My Mother was removed as a Judge in the Malibu Court when she agreed with the defense of a person who got a ? ticket based on ? facts. The LACSD told her that she was either with them or against them before they moved to remove her and this was before the voters moved to remove the corrupt Sheriff a few years latter after stories ran in the times. So I can tell you that the Judges are afraid for their jobs when they rule .In my Mothers case my step dad was an LACSD and heard constant pillow talk of their methods so they both rad reason to worry .
My favorite urban legend has always been the one that defies simple, common sense. It's the 'ol "You know, a cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him, right?" They say it with all seriousness, like they've never taken 10 seconds to think about how would the police be able to do ANY undercover stings?
I don't know why the johns aren't all smiles. They got the female cop dead to rights for breach of contract, and damages will be huge from the persecution that followed.
They don't have to tell a person they are a cop during the undercover operation. but they have to identify themselves before they arrest the suspect or it can be intrapment. but usually that never becomes an issue. because the undercover cops are so well disguised. that the suspects don't even think of having the undercover cops identify themselves. because it would blow their cover.
I've been driving since 1979, and drinking for longer, but have managed to never get a DUI conviction. One time I was pulled over on suspicion, but the matter was settled at the side of the road, so no court appearance on that. My method, while not exactly foolproof, is pretty solid. No trickery, no magic potion to drink to remove the alcohol, no mints, etc. I simply don't drive when I've had a significant amount of alcohol. Usually, going out drinking with friends, I either just have non-alcoholic beverages, or I have a sober person drive me home. Sometimes I'll have one drink, and then make sure it's a couple of hours before I drive. But mostly, I find it's easier to draw the line at zero. One drinking buddy claimed this wasn't true, as he'd seen me having not just beer, but whiskey too, and leaving soon after my last drink. What he missed was that my wife picked me up.
@@Dirtyboxer1 Yes, though I've watched enough Lehto's Law videos to know I could still be arrested for DUI, have all my stuff stolen by the cops, be forced to undergo a bunch of body scans and cavity checks, spend time in jail, before finally being released.
Knowing your limit goes a long way, planing/allotting time to sober up before leaving works for me. If I question my ability to drive home I will often self preform the balance tests. If I fail myself I'm downing a large glass of water and waiting 30+ min, rinse repeat. Perfect?, Hell No, but its a decent self check.
I have seen someone beat a DUI. There is a certain formula: 1. get into a single vehicle accident in the middle of the night, 2. abandon the vehicle on the side of the road (you'll need someone to pick you up), 3. report the accident in the morning after you sober up, and most important: 4. be a professional sport figure in the area you do this. You will walk away with just a leaving the sight of an accident ticket and your sports car will be impounded.
It also helps if you're related to a certain prominent political family. Doesn't even matter if a girl drowned in the back seat after you drove your car off a bridge!
In Hungary, we have a partial cover for this in the traffic code (1/1975. (II. 5.) KPM-BM együttes rendelet; 58. § (4)), which says that if an accident happened, you are not allowed to drink until police actions are complete. (Before I have checked it, I would have bet on that it covers a simple traffic stop too, but apparently, it doesn't.)
Steve, I really enjoy your channel! :-) I am a 51-year-old lifetime commercial real estate appraiser. Although I did not specialize in expert witness work, that is how I came up, before I started my own business. So I’m not completely ignorant of the rule of law. But I swear I would never have guessed that I find Law so fascinating when presented by you. There is just absolutely something different about you, your presentation, your ability to make any and every case seem so compelling! You’re fairly fascinating brother! 💪👍♥️ looking forward to more great works! ⚖️
@@BlooCollaGal That's it on the nose. Steve here has taught Law before, and I'd say that's the main reason why his presentations are not dry as the Sahara desert. He's probably studied homiletics too. He's always clear when he talks too, you very rarely have to rewind the video to get when you thought he'd said. He's a natural teacher.
I have heard a story of someone got in an accident right in front of a bar. Then went inside and did a bunch of shots to calm his nerves after the accident.
I 'got away' with it once, when I was young and slightly less stupid. I drove home from the bar which was about 3/4 mile down the road from my apartment. The trooper car followed me down the road, and pulled into the apartment parking lot next to me. This was in January, the parking lot wasn't paved, and I parked on a higher spot. The trooper pulled in on ice. He never turned on his lights or siren. I was getting stuff out of my car when he got out of his car and stepped right on the ice and fell on his ass. I asked if he was OK. He said he was as he got up. He asked if I lived there. I pointed to my apartment. He said that I should tell the landlord to get the parking lot fixed, it's icy. Then he got in his car and drove off. I accepted the fact that I just got insanely lucky, and have never done that again.
In the 70s when I was young and dumb (at least once I was underage) I got pulled over 3 times when I believed I was way over the limit. On each occasion the reason for the pullover was speeding or rolling thru a stop sign. AND CRUCIALLY, this was before Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and widespread public outrage over drunken driving. Once, the cops simply missed that I was drunk. The other two times, they knew I was sh*tfaced, and they told me they knew, but I was less than 2 miles from my house. On each of these occasions, they LET ME GO, after issuing a ticket for whatever infraction they had stopped me for. Mind you, this was Maryland, and at the time they had 2 levels of severity for drinking/driving: You were presumed driving under the influence if your BAC was .10 or above, and you were presumed driving while intoxicated if your BAC was .15 or greater. Then the mad mothers got involved and the world (and drunk driving laws) changed . . .
@@timetowakeup6302 dash cam can sometimes make think twice because you now have proof that you didn’t do anything wrong and yes they try to arrest you but in most cases they don’t want to hassle with video evidence on your side.
I was arrested for DUI while getting a boat ready for the summer. I was taken to county lock up and I demand a breathalyzer. Breathalyzer test showed 0 alcohol. Still cost me $800 for the tow on the truck and boat then another $400 for the repairs for the boat motor not raised. Sold boat fuck national park rangers.
There was an old show called Quincy M.E. that used that exact premise of drinking a lot after the fact. A guy drove his car into a rival, killing him, then guzzled a fifth of booze before the cops got there. They ended up ready to acquit the guy saying the death was "accidental" (DUI laws were trivial in the 1970's) when Quincy got on the stand and said that a blood sample from a knee injury sustained in the accident showed no alcohol in the sample. But the blood samples taken after the crash showed him well over the limit. Really memorable episode. Good show.
The inherent flaw in DUI laws is that blood alcohol levels over the legal limit do not account for a given individual’s tolerance to alcohol. Example: about 20 years ago I dated a police officer. I was a heavy drinker at the time and so she asked me to be a volunteer at the police department’s DUI training course wherein they give participants shots of alcohol, perform a breathalyzer, and then have them perform maneuvers on a closed off driving course. I did not show driving impairment until I hit .23 whereas one woman showed driving impairment at .05. I no longer drink and am happier for it and strongly discourage people from drinking and driving but I’m also aware that BACs over the legal limit are not necessarily indicative of impairment.
15:40 I was pulled over once by a cop that was positive that I had to be drunk driving. Luckily I was able to clear it up when I explained that I was from New Jersey. 👍
I think the same thing about DC Metro area. Of course midwest states if your not weaving to avoid the potholes are more like canyons then they know it's DUI/DWI/OVI.
@@kisstune My Dad got pulled over for “weaving” when the cop following him was weaving the same to miss the same potholes. I was pulled over for “weaving” on my motorcycle. I explained to the cop that “weaving” is how a motorcycle keeps from falling. He didn't understand the physics. Not surprising as a guy who said that he had ridden his Harley for 40 years didn't know what he did to keep the bike from falling. When I saw it I realized that he really had the same motorcycle for 40 years.
Something similar happened at my Dad's workplace. Dad was a foreman and found out that an employee had liquor in his locker. When dad asked the employee about it, the employee pulled the bottle of out their locker and drank the little one that was in it and said there was now no proof(!) of alcohol in the locker.. Went very bad for the employee, as keeping the alcohol in the locker was not a firing offense, but drinking on the job was.
@@glee21012 Doesn't matter if you're on break, it takes a lot longer than your break to get that alcohol back out of your system, so by the time the break ends you'd be drunk on the clock.
While stationed in Mississippi, we had an individual who had been at a party. The police found his car wrapped around a tree. He was nowhere to be found. If I remember correctly, he was found at home. His story was that he had drank too much, so he let a guy who he had met at the party drive his car. He didn’t remember the dudes name. He was not charged with DWI. Had he been, the navy would have punished him also.
Here's a better pro tip. Don't drink and drive and you won't have to worry about avoiding cops. Speaking for myself, I've found that that has worked out well for me.
@@ssmt2 I think that’s the most clear way. You may have missed that my comment didn’t say anything about drinking and driving. Simply avoiding the system all together. When you’re right, you’re right.
@@cheesynuts4291 You're way is the best way but it's pretty difficult to do if you want to go out in public. I try my best to avoid cops but sooner or later you'll see one, even if it's while driving by one while you're on the road.
@south968 here here!! Had a judge tell me once (traffic ticket) you clearly were not a fault, just pay court costs and be on your way. Your charging me money to be told I did nothing wrong!!!
Here in Wisconsin years ago a guy beat a DUI. There were two occupants in the can, a Rolls Royce, and driving down the freeway swerving. A cop saw it and pulled the car over. He had the driver come out of the car and then tested him for alcohol. That person was legally way over the limit and was arrested for DUI. When it came to the court case the officer got up on the stand and testified. Once his lawyer started the cross examination he asked the officer to go over what happened. When he got to the part of walking up to the driver side the lawyer stopped him. He asked what side did he go to. The officer said driver side. The lawyer asked him again what side of the car, left or right. The officer responded the left side. Turns out the car was a right hand drive Rolls Royce and the officer arrested the passenger for DUI. Since the driver was never tested the case was dismissed. Pretty sure it was in Waukesha County and reported in the Milwaukee Journal. Likely more than 20 years ago.
A trick in a rural area with many hills where I went to school was; Cowboys always had a cowboy hat on the passenger side in the rear window. More than 1 got pulled over & quickly slipped into the passenger side & pretended to be asleep. The cops looked for the driver thinking he ran off, but he was in the passenger seat the whole time.
I call BS. First, before the police would allow the car to be driven away they would have verified the new driver is sober. Otherwise, they impound the car. Second, if a cop walks up to the car and peers in the window, he would notice the car's missing steering wheel.
Hey Atty Steve! Thanks for all these videos of information. I have watched a number of them. I also noticed an "Alma mater" noting a Coast Guard relationship. I was in 81-85 aboard a Great White. Hamilton WHEC 715 "Shark-715" during all the HMIO's and GITMO REFTRAN with the USN and of course the proverbial drug interdictions along the Great Inagua's. Did you serve as JAG officer back in your time in or was it your jumping off point? Thanks for your time presenting this info!
Steve, I've read several of Brunvand's books. Great stuff. I've always enjoyed debunking bs stories. I got in fights when I was younger because I didn't believe the stories some kids would try and pull over on me. My parents used to tell me I should have been a lawyer because I liked to argue. But I was too ADD to sit & do research & study. Really enjoy the channel. 73s!
For all the people saying "don't drink and drive it's that simple". No it's not. I was pulled over 5 years ago and arrested for "suspected DUI". They brought me down to the station to take a breathalyzer test. I blew a .00. I didn't get so much as an apology from the tyrant coward who pulled me over and unlawfully arrested me. Lost 3 hours of my time and had to go through all that for nothing.
I despise drunk drivers, ever since I witnessed a drunk driver kill a young mother and her daughter many years ago. I am 66 years old now, and those few seconds are some that I will take to my grave, no matter what age I live to attain.
Real life true story. My brother went out drinking. Tried to drive himself home. He hit a tree close to my mom's home. Fractured his hip and wrist, but fear of a dui made him crawl/walk to my mother's house where she immediately called the police, (while my brother drank everything he could get his hands on while waiting). He did not get charged with a dui. He got charged with leaving the scene, which was dropped because he had no cell phone at the time and there were no other drivers injured or otherwise. They couldn't prove he drank before entering my mom's house. They charged him with a bunch of charges but once he went to court, all charges were dismissed..
That book, "Bad Girls Guide to the open road", my mom gave it to me the day I got my license (my 17th birthday), and it also teaches you how to use your car as an oven to make things like nachos and frozen burritos. It also teaches girls street smart and is part of a 'Bad Girls Guide" series. Great read.
There was a rich polo mogul / socialite in Wellington Florida who basically used this as his defense after he caused a fatal accident while driving drunk. This happened in 2010. He was still found guilty of DUI manslaughter and is currently serving 12 years in prison
I had an inlaw at one time who did get out of a dui after a wreck using similar tactics. He had rolled his truck on a backroad in ohio. After the wreck he grabbed his case of beer walked to road sit down and started drinking again (was a beer run so just left store with unopened case) by the time local Sheriff arrived at the scene he had consumed half the case of beer (45min before anyone showed up). All cans from new case beer was with him none in the truck. His reply to cops was he started drinking caused he wrecked his truck and had nothing to do while waited. Cops got him for failure to control but unable to issue a dui since it was such a long time from when he wrecked till cops arrived.
Similar situation for a roommate in college. Wrecked and car caught on fire. Another driver gave him a few beers and he sat on the side of the road, drinking, watching his car burn, waiting for emergency services. I'm not sure if the police opted not to charge or if it went to magistrate, but he did get away with it.
Here in Grant County WI many years ago there was a DUI of someone on a motorcycle. They where pulled over for load exhaust not bad driving. They got out of the DUI when they compared the exhaust to a court house employees exhaust and found his to not be as load. The loud exhaust was the reason for the stop and the stop was now invalidated. For atleast the next 5 years any exhaust modifications where fined for loud exhaust and it didn't matter if it was a truck bike or your grandma leaving taco bell.
Variation on the $50 "death car" urban legend. I actually read this one in a newspaper article as supposedly real. In the newspaper story it supposedly happened in a neighboring state ("friend of a friend" becomes "state next to a state"). The story was that a new Porsche was advertised in the classifieds for sale for $50. For a few days nobody pays attention because it's assumed it's either a typo or a scam. So a young college student answers the ad and goes to look at the car and finds yes it really is a new Porsche and the woman really is selling it for $50. So after he buys the car he asks the woman why it was so cheap. The woman answers that her husband recently died and she then found out that he had been cheating on her with a mistress and that in his will the mistress was to receive either "the Porsche or the proceeds from its sale."
A variation of that story that actually happens is in divorce cases. Generally the judge, assuming the other party had a lawyer that wasn't asleep will say uhh yeah no, you are paying the value of the car, not what you sold it for as it was clearly so far below market value.
One variation of this I have heard was that the husband had fled to a different State with his mistress, and said "Hey, hon, I need you to sell my nice car and send me the proceeds! I'm stuck in this State" thinking that she doesn't know about the affair ... and she sells the car for $15 and says "here you go!" I expect that to be about as true as any of these other things .... but it's *still* a funny story.
That story began 4 decades ago, when no Freedom living Americans would buy a Porsche, not even for $50! Those Haps are taking over! I know, it's German. But, the story in the 70's was a 55 Chevy, like new, husband died blah blah. Then, it became a Corvette (65-69), son went off to Vietnam, store the car in Mom n dad's garage, got killed, and the parents finally decided to sell it. That's was the late 80's, early 90's version. So now it's a Porsche huh? I like the Corvette the best.
I've never been involved with any threat of receiving a DUI; although I have had the opportunity to get totally out of a speeding ticket for doing 81mph in a 55 (actually 93mph): I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas and had a Stratos 355V Bass Boat with a Mariner 115HP Motor and was the Barracks Sgt. and as a thank you for taking one of the subordinates with me every time I took my boat to the lake for water skiing ( He was my go-to because he always watched where the boat was going while he was at the helm while I was skiing instead of watching the skier); was offered a 5 Day 4 night Bahamas Cruise for $59 (the port cost fee per person on the manifest). He was also the childhood sweetheart (since age 4) of the daughter of the Templeton Travel Agency owner who chartered a Cruise Ship every year for the Bahamas. He was given a free cruise every year but missed the previous year due to having been in Basic Training and/or AIT, and so was told to bring a friend. We took my car and towed my Kawasaki 650SX Jet Ski to his parent's home in Clearwater, Florida where we stayed for the two weeks leading up to the cruise. When we left for Miami the day of the cruise we were informed to be there by 1:00 PM and started down the West coast of Fla and were intending to head to Miami for our embarkation via Alligator Alley and after driving south about an hour we heard a newscast interrupt our program with the notification of a 23 car pile up on Alligator Ally blocking all traffic in both directions. I took the next exit and doubled back figuring that there was little chance we would get there on time and so I stepped on it because our 4 hour drive with three hours remaining to get there with an hour to spare just turned into a six hour drive with no time to spare by going north and cut across Fla via Tallahassee and go down the East coast. I got pulled over in Palm Beach County for doing 93 in a 55. I showed my License, Registration, and Proof of Insurance and answered the obvious question - "Why?" When I explained the situation the Officer did the unexpected. He said that the Cruise lines don't actually set sail until 3:00pm and said that if he actually ticketed me for the speed I was doing he would have to take me in and impound the car and totally ruin our vacation. He thanked us for our service and only issued a ticket for doing 81 in a 55 and cautioned us to stay under 5mph over the speed limit and reassured us we would get to Miami with time to spare before the cruise liner finished boarding. We thanked him and I put the ticket in the glove box and literally forgot about it until almost three months later when I was doing a detailed cleaning of my car. I panicked when I found it because I held a TS Clearance and this unpaid ticket could affect my clearance status. I called their collections office and asked what their standard late fee was ( and never asked if I had been assessed any late fees yet) and then went to my Bank and purchased a Cashier's Check for the total which included the late fee amount I was told over the phone. I mailed the paperwork and Cashier's check via certified express mail and received the same Cashier's Check in my mail a few weeks later informing me that they could not process the check because it was for more than what I owed and they had no ability to cut a check for the difference. I wrote them back and thanked them for refusing full payment of a just debt. Several months later I talked to a local Police officer in Copperas Cove, Texas and told him about it and he asked if he could run my Driver's License info and check on it for me. He said that the speeding ticket in Fla did not exist on my record. I contacted Palm Beach County and they then informed me that because they did not accept the payment (though they had a record that I attempted to pay the fine in full and they refused payment, they had no choice but to remove the ticket "revenue" from their records to balance the books as part of their annual year's end in-house audits. This also meant they removed the revenue-source ticket from their records - AND MINE! Sometimes life can be exceedingly kind.
I was on a jury back in 96. The defendant was at a local racetrack. On the way home got food and took side streets. Said he was reaching for fries and hit a parked car. He stopped. Exchanged his info with the owner who heard the wreck and came out. He went home. An officer showed up later to take a report and accused him of smelling like alcohol .defendant denied it and was arrested. The defense argued he drank at home. The owner of the car said they noticed nothing off while exchanging insurance. For three days both sides argued his breathalyzer results and possible time lines. In the first juror vote I was the only one that said not guilty. After three more days we decided it was possible that he was not guilty and charged him with nothing. Don't know if you'd like more info or not. It almost applies here.
Most people don't know that you can be arrested for DUI after blowing a very low number (ie .02). If, the officer concludes that, in the totality of circumstances, your ability to drive was impaired by alcohol (in any amount), you will be arrested and likely convicted unless you have a very good attorney.
That "low" number can be applied for DUI IF the subject is on DUI probation, in most states, or a MINOR. There are "zero tolerance" laws that apply to repeat DUI offenders and/or minors that come into play, with a .02 or even .01 being legally considered as the detection limit for blood alcohol. If neither situation applies to you, while the officer COULD arrest you should you blow .02, or file charges anyway if you're arrested and you "blow" .02 at the station, unless there are some SERIOUS situations (like a collision, involving bodily injury, or an egregious moving violation, like excessive speed that would of itself constitute reckless driving or "exhibition of speed", either a misdemeanor involved, either they'll let you go without filing charges, or the DA will dismiss the case. While all states have a presumed level of intoxication, there's also a lower level where one is presumed to NOT be intoxicated, usually .04 or .05, that is difficult to overcome. However, outfits like MADD are continually pressing for these to be lowered to the detection limits, making one liable to a DUI charge if ANY alcohol is detected.
Jackson Wyoming going slow through a flashing yellow light pulled over and spent night in jail with 19 other DUI's. Had a glass of wine with dinner and a single beer at the famous cowboy bar after. I would have needed at least 3x's this amount to be above the legal limit. I guess it's just a scam and an abusive young officer. Next day walked out to one of the attorneys they suggest across the street, gave him my credit card and said I wouldn't be back. There was zero crime nor poor behavior. Evil is about and is frequently dressed in a uniform.
I saw a DUI trial in Orlando when I was in the Academy. The guy was lit up a block from his house. According to undisputed testimony, he drove on to his house and went inside. OPD knocked on his door and he came out with two scotch glasses and offered the officer a drink. He was arrested went to trial and was acquitted. It did not help that the LEO came off to the jury as a vindictive jackass.
@@DVankeuren I was on a jury (in California) that convicted when it wasn't even the cops who witnessed the driving. They did record the interactions at the driver's home, and administered a field sobriety test on-camera. It doesn't matter how you meet the burden of proof. My guess is that the prosecution in the Florida case failed to do meet it, perhaps because the LEO damaged their credibility. My experience has been that juries take the burden of proof pretty seriously. "Probably guilty" wouldn't cut it.
@@DVankeuren Officer did not know (apparently) that he was literally 4 driveways from his house (or so) so the driver was able to pull into his driveway and enter the house before the LEO could even react. Which I think was another thing the jury looked at, he obviously made it home with no accidents or injuries to anyone. I am not saying it was right (if the driver was indeed DUI), just relaying the information.
Florida lawyer here for 33 yrs, civil law only. Very interesting discussion, I have never heard this legend before. Your analysis makes sense though, and yep about Fla. man.
I first encountered this idea in the plot of a TV show, either "Hill Street Blues" or "NYPD Blue" (possibly "Law & Order"). After a man was involved in a fatal traffic accident, he called his lawyer from a payphone (yes, that long ago). He then ran into a nearby bar and ordered 8 shots of liquor (all at once). Upon being interviewed by police, the bartender said, "He was drinking like he had something to prove." I don't recall it working out any better for the character in that plot than for your examples.
26:36 Your assumption was so on point. This urban legend was on Mythbusters. They burried C4 Corvette with 2 pig's carcasses. They tried to get rid of its extreme smell but it was still aful. Couple of potential buyers turned down on a deal because of a smell. Then some guy came and bought it. When asked about if he said he's gonna disassemble the car for parts and sell them.
I was told by a friend of mine who is a Nassau County, NY police sergeant that in his career, he had responded to accident scenes where one of the people involved had, right after the accident, gave his info to the other driver and gone to a local bar and started drinking. The person said he was so upset about the accident, he felt he needed a drink to calm down. My friend also said he has had calls where a person who got into an accident gave information to the other driver, then left and went home. My friend went to the residence and was greeted by the person involved in the accident with a drink in his hand. In both cases, he knew it would be difficult if not impossible to prove that person was intoxicated before the accidents.
The story about the guys backing their truck up reminded me of something that happened in my town in about 2010. The story, as best as I can relate it comes from both police radio traffic (I am a police scanner fan) and an item in the Police Beat column in the paper. --- Drunk guy runs a stop sign and gets t-boned by the car that had the right of way. The accident breaks off one of his back wheels and bends the rear suspension down. Guy does not stop and leaves the scene (hit and run) Cops show up and see the wheel left behind and get the description of the car from the other driver. Cops notice scrapes in the road from the bent suspension and follow it. A few blocks later the scrapes lead up a driveway. Cops knock at the house, drunk guy answers ,claims innocence and refuses search of his house. Warrant is issued and it is discovered that he was the only occupant at the time and a car matching the description is in his garage, with a broken off wheel.
One Halloween night when I was 18 or 19, I was coming back alone from a party dressed as Sargent Pepper (satin jacket, shades, etc) and had to pull into a convenience store to take care of some cottonmouth from the drinking/smoking I had done earlier. The store was closed but they had a Coke machine outside, so I started digging around under the seats for change, and when I thought I had what i needed, I popped up to see blue lights and a cop walking slowly to the back of my car. I freaked out and jumped out of the car (1980's - cops were less tightly wound) and told the guy "I'm just getting a soda!!". They officer jumped back a few feet and kept flashing his light between me and the car and said "Umm, how are you guys doing tonight?" I said "GREAT. I'm really thirsty!" and the cop slowwly backs away from me to go back to his car. he left (quickly) and, because I was not in my right mind, I thought "Oh, he must be busy". I got my soda and drove home. It was only until the next day, when I reevaluated the situation, that I realized I had dodged a big bullet. From the cops perspective, there's a car stopped at a closed store and all he could see when he got closer was a guy dressed up in satin clothes and bobbing his head all around the passenger seat area. When I jumped out of my car saying I was thirsty, that's all the poor guy needed to hightail it out of there and find something else to do. Years later, I told my wife about the story and she absolutely though it was all BS. I have since seen the light and don't do stupid stuff like that, but to the Merrimack, NH officer who stopped me on Continental Blvd in 1986 or 87: I'm really sorry for freaking you out like that.
Yes, 80's cops were much different. True police. And if you got arrested, you didn't get mad, because you was Guilty. They let me go drinking more than k can remember. "Mr Campbell! What are you doing drinking and driving" Me- "Hey (insert FIRST name of cop, because we're friends *wink*). Cop- "Don't let me catch you in town again tonight!" I go ride around the county. Great times! Better days! Better Americans!.
@@jeffcampbell2710 - They were even less "wound up" in the 70s! Without writing a whole novel about the bizarre string of circumstances that led up to it, (because that's what it would take,) I actually rear ended a cop car on New Years Eve, at dusk, in the rain, on a blind curve, in the inside lane where the cop was waiting to turn left across two lanes of oncoming traffic. The road was not well drained, and I hydroplaned right into the back end of his 1974 Dodge Polara cruiser. The front end of my mother's 1970 Ford Fairlane 2 door was crushed, I hit the steering wheel, my knee hit the dash, and my glasses went flying. Back then, safety belts were not the big deal they would become later on, but this incident made me a firm believer from that day to this! I wound up in the ER of the hospital from which I had just spent two weeks and been released the day before. (I told you it was bizarre, but that's not the half of it!) Terrified me wound up in court a couple of weeks later, having ditched the crutches just the day before, which I had been using since my ER visit, but still limping. The judge heard my story, the cop's version, questioned me seriously, to which I answered dripping with respect, and decided I should be charged with "Failure to maintain proper lookout" - although how I could have improved my "lookout" I never did get an answer from anyone - and that I must attend Defensive Driving School. It took a week, which was mostly a waste of time and money, because I had to lay out cash for the privilege. I learned nothing I didn't already know, but by passing the test with flying colors, the judge later dropped the whole business. I had also dodged another bullet, as the State Point System was due to become effective not six hours after I had my little "run in" with the very surprised cop! Oh, did I forget to mention I was only 16 at the time? My 17th birthday was only 6 weeks later! The cop was basically cool about the whole thing, probably noticing I was already terrified enough about what had happened, hysterical about the damage to my mother's only car, plus having to be extricated from it and into an ambulance. That whole year was one I was not anxious to remember for a VERY long time!
@@jgunther3398 only if there was a death or serious injury of someone other than the driver as a result of a collision (If that law a while back went through then only the above or if the driver has prior felony DWI intoxication assault or intoxication manslaughter convictions or multiple prior misdemeanor DWI convictions).
I once had a friend who got away with drinking and driving because he also had a cold at the same time. He didn't drink that much and did not have far to drive, and probably would have been fine even if given a breathalyzer test. What he did have in his car was a bottle of cough syrup, which usually has alcohol as an ingredient and is used as cough medicine. Cough, sneeze, blow your nose into your hand, and have a bottle of cough syrup nearby.
That was pulled on me years ago by Township cops. I had a friend that was a State Trooper and I gave him a call instead of my attorney. He came down, he knew that I had bronchitis and told them to let me go or he would kick the shit out of both of the Township cops for false arrest. I had the bottle of cough syrup in my pocket. He saw the prescription and said come on I'll take you back to your car. I was only less than a half mile from my driveway where the jerks pulled me over. I didn't even do any traffic violations for them to pull me over.
Every time I've seen a cop get pulled over for DUI, they always always always refuse the field sobriety test. That alone should tell you never to take one.
I have an uncle with double digit license suspensions. Each one associated to a suspected DUI. No blood, no breath, no field test, no case. California they forcibly take blood. So results may vary.
@@bobeeman9730 It can take a couple of hours to draw blood (getting the warrant etc), you will metabolize the alcohol in the passing time, maybe below the threshold.
Another story I always enjoyed hearing was the Designated Decoy tale. Lots of sailors out drinking heavily and as they closed the bar, they knew that it was common for the cops to hide in shadows waiting to pounce and get one good DUI Traffic Stop. So, at closing one bar patron would step out, swaying and weaving as he headed for his car parked out front, under the street lamp. As he approached the car, he’d drop the keys and laughingly bend over to retrieve them, but fail and fail. Then he’d crawl around until he could pull himself up and try miserably to unlock the door. At this point the cops would approach counting on an obvious arrest. The young lad would pass his Roadside Sobriety Tests and then Blow 0.0, confusing the officers. Why, it was an act because he was the designated decoy, staying sober to allow the rest of the drinkers to leave during the show. Some urban stories are just stories!
This is similar to the argument used (and failed in court) where the defendant argues that their BAC level was below the minimum while driving but continued to rise, exceeding the limit, by the time the test was administered. The argument was that the defendant had recently stopped drinking and the alcohol had not yet been fully absorbed while driving.
I will say this as a biochemist and hematologist, breathalyzers have hundreds of false positives, to include pepperoni and slim jims, but blood tests don't lie. We can even draw a 2nd and 3rd sample and basically determine how much you drank and how long ago. However, some people are used to high alcohol levels and can appear to not be drunk and can pass field sobriety tests while their blood is telling you they are very drunk. Second, i had to do jury duty for a dui... the cop failed the field sobriety test in open court. The cop was asked if he was physically fit to which he said he was. The defendant suffered vertigo and while i am not sure what this does to his driving, it most definitely did mess with his field sobriety test. The police managed to fuck up the blood test somehow and it wasn't admissible so we never knew what the value was. But as a person literally called on testify that medical equipment gives legitimate results and have drawn and ran tens of thousands of blood tests, i was immediately critical of the police and the prosecutor's lackluster arguements and excuses as to why their was no blood test and how a physically fit police officer could somehow fail the field sobriety test. All that being said, as a hospital employess, don't drink and drive. I have seen too many people in the ER, dead or severely injured due to being involved in a DUI related accident.
I am a private detective with a master's degree in forensic science. I was hired by a defence attorney representing a man who had gotten in a wreck where the other driver readily admitted fault. However, the police arrested the attorney's client for DUI. He refused a breathalyzer test, and after obtaining a warrant, they drew blood several hours after the crash. The GCMS came back as 0.24 -- three times the legal limit -- and based on the time interval, I conservatively estimated his BAC as being 0.32 at the time of the crash. The man pleaded out and moved to Germany, which of course is far less tolerant of this sort of thing.
You can’t get blood without a warrant. You are not getting warrants for misdemeanor DWI charges Also for a breathalyzer to be valid there has to be a 20 min deprivation period with nothing in the mouth to eliminate the chance of false positives
@@m.hasler7263 Yes, it was done with a warrant, which are routinely obtained in Louisiana verbally by telephone or or by fax. There will be a judge, magistrate, or justice of the peace on rotation who will be available at all times to do it. In this case, he was arrested by the parish Sheriff, and a warrant was obtained over the phone at the scene and the blood was drawa at the Louisiana State Police Troop office in the same jurisdiction.
This same thing happened in South Carolina to our Chief Justice of the SC Supreme Court. Back in 2001, she had an accident with a parked car. She left the scene. The state trooper showed up to her house and knocked on the door. She answered the door with an alcoholic drink in her hand. She was only cited for leaving the scene of an accident. I guess it is all who you know.
I have a friend that was drinking, skidded on ice and flipped his car. He got a ride home and when he answered the door when the cops showed up, dank a beer. Git him for leaving the scene but not drinking.
Wasn't that captain Hazelwood from the Exxon Valdez ? Lol, I think I read where his defense was he was so shook up from what happened that he went to his cabin and slammed some whiskey , maybe I'm mistaken, p.s. I'm from Middle Twp, Cape May County NJ, and know the players in the Van, open container story....great video as usual!
My favorite way to get out of a DUI is to not get drunk! It usually works, although you still need to pay attention and know your rights regarding testing.
Not to split hairs but there is a legal distinction between being "drunk" and DUI/DWI. Being "drunk" is behavior related - as a result of an intoxicating substance. DUI requires a driver being in excess of a specific amount of blood alcohol limit.
@@MrJuxone the statute in many states is twofold…DUI which doesn’t require any particular BAC and the second section which is DUI over the limit. So you can be under 0.08 and still get arrested for DUI if the officer thinks you are impaired.
@@someonespadre i understand your point but in many states if one fails to register .08 for DUI. (.05 for impaired), then there should be other supporting evidence of impaired driving e.g blood, urine test results. But I was speaking of the use of the work DRUNK.
Back in the late 70's I personally tried the "get out and drink" in a small mid west town (yes i was young and dumb) but it actually worked. I did get out of the DUI arrest at the scene, but it didnt end there. I got tickets for public intox and disturbing the peace because i may or may not have aggressively left some rubber on the road coughcough. Those cost me a couple hundred dollars in fines, which was significant money back then but nowhere near what a DUI court case would have been plus the points on my license and/or jail time. I didnt have to go to court and just mailed in my payment. Thankfully the local cop gave me a break and instead of an arrest for DUI, he let my girlfriend who was with me and not drinking, drive me and the car back to my house while he followed behind until we got there, then he told us that he was going to make his rounds and he better see the car in the driveway when he came by or there would be hell to pay. If that were to happen in todays world, i would have been arrested and the car impounded etc. etc., but back then, small town cops had a whole different attitude about enforcing laws, they used their judgement and based it on the severity of the offense. If there wasnt something more serious involved like property damage, an accident or injury, they were more inclined to resolve the issue right then and there.
Dude, they probably would have just drove you home if you didn't pull all the crap. At least that's what everybody tells me about the '70s around here.
True, several friends were always given a ride home. Unfortunately, the deputy would wake up mom and dad to go retrieve the car from the scene! Oh and the odor of an alcoholic beverage was mentioned! Mom and dad were always worse than a stranger judge!
@@davesomeone4059 Well in Buffalo NY they would drive you home in the 70's because that's how my father got home at least twice a week . Move forward to the early 80's and when my older brother downed a 6 pack in front of the cops he knew he was going to jail for driving without a license and he was never charged with a DWI because the cops beat it out of him so he made it a habit to take an ass beating over a DWI charge
Reminds me of a story my criminal law professor told our class about a client he had or from another Lawyer that had gotten out of an OWI. That "story" about his client that called him asking what he should do when he drove his semi-truck into a ditch. The client states that the proprietor of a house near the accident has called the police and he may have had been drinking earlier and was possible over the limit which is less for a Semi driver the a regular vehicle operator. The client was driving an Amheisor-Busch distributional vehicle full of Alcohol into a ditch.. The professor a former County Attorney (Or a Lawyer he knew of) told him to take a twelve pack out of the back of the truck leaving the back trailer door open or up. Told him to quickly pour 2 or 3 bottles of beer in the woods a few feet away. Placing the empty bottles back in the case and sit with it and a half empty beer in your hand at the back of the trailer. When the police come stay there and tell them a deer ran in front of you and you had swerved to miss it causing the accident. Then seem visible shaken saying I was so distrait seeing my life flash before my eyes so I threw a couple beers back just to calm his nerves. Now me Professor had lots of crazy stories but I tended to believe most of them. His name is Tom Jolas and this was Iowa. I can't be sure if this was a real true event or just a farce, but it sounded legit maybe only Tom knows. Unfortunately I see Tom Passed away in 2019. Coincidently In addition to his legal practice specializing in real estate law, Tom owned a wholesale beer distributorship at one time. Either way he was a hell of a good story-teller and teacher!
Not to outdo Steve but I heard this 62 years ago, 2 yrs after my getting my 1st D L a week after turning 16. Never forgot it and never missed to loudly laugh.
Having been hit by a drunk driver in 2001 and suffered permanent disfigurement and disability because of it, I have a deep personal animosity about these schemes.
If I were king, I'd categorize the first offense of drunk driving as assault with a deadly weapon with a minimum sentence of at least 5 years. 10 or 15 years would not be too harsh. Second offence would be either life on a chain gang without possibility of parole or just execution. There is absolutely zero excuse for a single person to drive drunk and drunk drivers murder about 10,000 people a year and cause 300,000 to 400,000 accidents, many of them with VERY serious, life long consequences for the victim. We've always had taxis, designated drivers, plain old NOT DRINKING and drinking in a place where no driving will be required, now we have Uber and Lyft etc, there is absolutely no excuse for drinking and driving.
@@mattobermiller5041 an excuse? no... an explanation sure, people make bad decisions all the time, people make way more bad decisions after drinking, id bet the vast majority of people who drink and drive wouldnt never consider that they would actually do it while sober, but once drunk their decision making suffers.. theres no excuse to do most crimes, is there a great reason to rob a store? assault your wife/partner, first degree murder? drunk driving is the only one i hear people say theres no excuse for jut because theres alternatives.. theres alternatives to most crimes, most of them are get a job an straighten your shit out, dont do drugs and dont get into altercations.. easy to say keep it on the straight and narrow harder to do.. many people believe they can drive fine while drinking and to be fair some can and theres obviously varying levels of drunkenness' someone getting a DUI after 3 beer is pretty unnecessary.. someone driving after 20 drinks is probably not far off from just firing a gun at random in any direction to be clear before we jump to assumptions i dont have a DUI, nore do i condone drinking and driving... but like any crime it starts with bad decision making
Former officer in MO. A blood draw series under consent or warrant can show a BA curve and used as evidence. But that all depends on jurisdiction, how much work and officer will put in, and if a prosecutor is willing to go with it.
In the mid 80’s a guy I worked with had a family member that worked for the DPS in Texas. (Department of Public Safety) He said that in Academy one instructor advised this same thing. Keep a sealed pint of liquor in the glove compartment and if you’re pulled over, break the seal in plain sight and guzzle it.
So the pint is supposed to be used in case your drinking while driving and get pulled over? So this dumbass is planning on drinking and driving and has a plan if he gets stopped? Many people complain about the DUI they got because it costs them thousands in legal fees and maybe loss of license. But what these a-holes dont realize is they got off lucky. They could have caused bodily harm, maybe even killed someone and gone to prison for manslaughter as a result...let alone destroying lives, and all these douchebags are whining about is losing some money? Worst people in the world...no brains, no morals....I really hope they do'nt breed their recessive genes into the population.
I actually worked for many years with an auto mechanic who grew up in his families auto salvage yard. He said they commonly got stinky cars that had been died in, mostly wrecks, and they simply lit a big stoggie and set it in the ash tray, closed all the doors and lit it burn down to nothing. He necer said how they got rid of the cigar odor though.
I knew of a case back around 1992 where something like this happened. He was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy for a broken tail light and was probably just over the limit which at the time was .10%. He got out of the car, opened a bottle of whiskey, took a few swigs (mostly gargled & spit) and poured the rest out. The officer made him do a field sobriety check, which he passed. He was then ordered to do a roadside breathalyzer, which he refused. He was arrested for DWI. At the station, he was given a breathalyzer against his consent and blew a 0.11%. The DA filed to have his license revoked for refusing the roadside breathalyzer, but dropped the DWI charge. The kicker is that his army unit referred him for a summary courts martial in which he was found guilty and reduced in rank from e3 to e1.
The field sobriety is another element of the DUI that is often abused. If the investigating policeman is willing to lie in his affidavit, he can testify about what parts of the test someone failed, whether they passed or failed. "After standing on one leg for 4 seconds, the defendant lost his balance and I had to catch him before he fell." Or, the infamous, "I detected the strong odor of alcohol coming from the car and about his person." You're toast. Believe it or not, juries still believe the old hackneyed "but cops have no reason to lie". If there is a quota (or a reward system in place, cops have many incentives to lie about the odor of alcohol.
Gotta love the “this one time” stories and people believe it. I am truck driver and just some of the stories I hear that people claim are true are some good ones.
A coworker of mine (yea yeah, I know) a 3 years ago was charged and convicted of being intoxicated while in "care and control" of a motor vehicle. He was at a bar with friends drinking all night. At the end of the night he called his girlfriend to come pick him up because he was clearly drunk. He decided he would go and wait in his car for her. While sitting in the driver's seat, he fell asleep. The car was not running, his keys were in his pocket. Before his girlfriend got there, a police officer noticed him, tested him, and subsequently arrested him. Apparently the penalty for being intoxicated with in care and control of a vehicle is exactly the same as a DUI. I know this story because I had to personally deal with this from our company's standpoint. It was the first time I heard of "care and control".
I mean, it sort of makes sense. You never know if a drunk person with their keys in their pockets might just turn on the car and drive. It sholdn't be as bad of a charge as an actual DUI tho.
People have been stung for that while asleep on the back-seat because the keys were in the vehicle with them,not even on their person. So this doesn't surprise me at all.
In the Dakota's this is called "Actual Physical Control of a motor vehicle" I have arrested many folks on that charge over my time as an officer. You see, My mom walked using a brace after being rear ended by a drunk driver. My sister was driving the car with mom and one of her friends in it, My sister died some years later of brain cancer that was thought to have been related to the fact she lay in a coma for over a week after her head went through the steering wheel of the 1959 Ford. This was in 1967 so you can imagine I did not tolerate excuses for DUI or APC when I came upon them. Having grown up in a family where drinking and fighting among the family I was known on the PD to be the one to call when a drunk was holed up with a gun or hostage because I knew how to calm them down and get them out. I guess there are advantages to most everything if you look for them.
I do this at least once a week. The local LEO just expects it now and we just sit on the side of the road and finish the fifth while telling fishing stories. She is now a bigger alcoholic than me.
"... one beer doing that ..." can be reasonably assessed. The reading found can be adjusted to account for it. After all we have guidelines to suggest how much will produce a violation. Plus it takes time for alcohol to enter the bloodstream.
Whenever I hear these hypotheticals on drinking and/or driving, I always imagine what Randy Marsh would do. Seeing a lot of dashcam footage, a lot of people apparently put it into practice.
I thought for DWI they don't have to prove what substance caused the impairment, just that the driver operated the vehicle while impaired. This may include legally prescribed medication.
The story variant I heard was the driver who hit a lamp pole, near the corner bar. He went in to the bar, bought several drinks, while waiting to be tracked down by the cops. This gave him the bartender as a witness. Funny thing about urban legends is that some elements of the story can be true. In the 1970s, while I was in the US Navy stationed in San Diego, we taught our young sailors that if they came out of the bar (usually at closing) too drunk to drive, to get in the back seat and sleep it off there in the bar parking lot and let the sun wake them up. But the cops started waking them up and using the argument that if they had the keys in their possession, they could operate the vehicle. So we started teaching them to leave the keys outside the car, behind the tire (on the ground) while they slept, so they could not be found to able to operate the vehicle and if the car had a back seat, to climb in the back. Parked, No Keys, Private Property Parking Lot, gave them a better chance to beat the charge, but of course then the cops started trying: The Public Drunkenness charge instead. It goes to the part of your story about tossing the keys out the window.
I have heard a similar myth that two guys were speeding on a highway. Knowing that the cop just pulled out or passed them and is turning around to pull them over they pull over to an off ramp and park. They turn off the car and both get out of the passenger door. They sit on the trunk with the keys between them and wait for the LEO to come up and approach them. Both deny being the driver and the officer never saw one of them driving. Since he can’t prove which one was driving he lets them go. And of course it is always a friend of a friend of a friend’s brother who pulled off this brilliant move. I have heard this from multiple people over many years in various forms.
@@DeadlyPlatypus I'd arrest both, and let the DA flip a coin for who to offer immunity to have testify. Once chance in two we get the driver. One chance in two we give immunity to the driver.
@@joshuahudson2170 Lose lose. Whichever gets immunity says they did it. Like the other one is going to call him a liar and get locked up for drunk driving.
I was advised by an attorney in 1977 to have this as a strategy to avoid dui / dwi conviction. Like some other people, I do not drink and drive so the advice has never been tested
I..about 2004.. did to what the boys who hit pole did. Similar. It worked for me. (with police) I had consumed all or part of a 32oz "big gulp" coke with Seagrams Seven over a few hours.. I hit a parked car on a narrow residential street, mid afternoon in my 1 Ton pickup. I parked. Did not feel "influenced" but below .08 bac ? Idk. The homeowner/carowner called MPD and came outside. He was calm, friendly,, said it was a company car (new). We chatted on his porch. I made a drink (knowing that.).It took 45 min for an officer. Cop and carowner took my info. Like Columbo officer said "Oh..one more thing..have anything to drink?" I said "Well yeah..while waiting I ..ect" The officer gave me a short father like lecture..."Oh..now you should never do that because impossible to tell..ect" I said "I'm sorry didn't even think about that". He was probably observing me just as a trained officer would and didn't see intoxication. But still might be over 0.8.? Maybe/ Probably. Damage One ton Chevy : bent bumper/ fender $300. New Ford Taurus $17,000. Fixed it, not totalled!! Mike Buhler,, Modesto CA.
As a Florida Police Officer I dealt with a FLORIDA MAN driver that did exactly this! I am a former FL LEO in and from Okaloosa County FL in Fort Walton Beach. In the 90's when I was a Fort Walton Beach Police Officer I was sent to a house in which a wife had an injunction (restraining order from a Judge) in which her husband could not come within 100 feet of her or her (their) home. She said her husband kept stalking her, harassing her, driving by the house honking his horn and yelling at her in the process. He drove by her house while we were stand at her front door. I chased him down an conducted a traffic stop on his vehicle. As he exited the vehicle he opened a "handle" of Vodka" (1.75 L bottle) and chugged down the Vodka as I walked towards him. I struggled to get the bottle away from him! As a result I let him slide on the DUI and arrested him for stalking his wife repeatedly along with violating the Judge's Restraining Order. Needless to say I would bet it's happened to many other officer's as well. I actually saw him break the seal. I wonder how many officer's without cameras would have just lied or embellished what they saw and acted like the liquor bottle was already opened.
Biology and chemistry are stacked against someone who tries this to get out of a DUI charge. Former Indiana certified breathalyzer operator here. First, different states use different equipment to run breath tests. So, operational rules for S&W breathalyzers are different from intoxilyzers, gas chromatographs, and so on. But all rely on common scientific principles. One, a human body metabolizes ethanol at a rate of .015% per hour. Administer two tests at least 30 minutes apart, and you can extrapolate backwards to a driver’s BAC at the time of the stop or the time of the accident. Anyone at or over .30, we aren’t sticking around for a second test, we are headed straight for the ER. Two, Henry’s Law states that the content of alcohol in the breath is 1/2100 of the content in the blood. Proven science. All equipment that tests breath employs Henry’s Law. The equipment is also designed to capture and test alveolar air from the bottom-most part of the lungs which allows the most accurate sampling. Subjects are observed for at least 30 minutes prior to testing to ensure they take nothing by mouth. I was a breathalyzer guy so I can’t speak for the other equipment types, but six substances will create a result on a breathalyzer - ethanol, methanol, isopropanol, acetone, ether, and cigarette smoke. That’s why nothing by mouth for 30 minutes prior. FSTs are goofy, the old fashioned ones anyway like finger to nose, picking up coins, walking heel to toe, and so forth. Defense attorneys invariably ask the arresting officer to perform the same test in court, and many cannot. Eye nystagmus test has become more popular, but is really subjective. Some agencies use little handheld alcohol detectors, but I think they are a waste of time. I liken FSTs to throwing a pass in football. Three things can happen, and two of them are bad as a motorist. One, you submit to a FST and fail; you’re getting a breath test. Two, you refuse a FST; you’re getting a breath test. Three, you submit to a FST and pass, you might get a break. Are there bad operators and poorly maintained equipment out there? Sure but I don’t think it’s widespread or the courts would dismiss a lot more DUI charges. Regardless, I would always follow a breath test with a blood test if possible, or ask for a blood test in lieu of breath if that’s an option. Better yet, as many other commenters pointed out, don’t drink and drive and you never have to worry about it.
I agree with you, I was a certified Initializer operator my self, because cops don't like getting woke up at 3:30 AM to run the machine, our small department had us all certified to operate the machine and, of course State law required periodic recertification, a 3 day affair where the first day the laws and operation of the machine were reviewed, the second and third day were practical's, in which half the class were operators, the other half were given their alcoholic beverage of choice and got drunk with breath tests AND blood tests every half hour. We were given cards and such to make the drinking and testing time bearable. You make good friends state wide at those classes! Being a Scotch lover I was a bit disappointed that they would not buy me me my preferred brand which was rather expensive but a cheaper more well known brand. It took me 13 straight shots to put me over the .10 which was the arrest percent at that time in ND.
@@JerryEricsson Jerry, I had a very similar experience at the Indiana course in Plainfield. On Monday, we had to fill out a slip,with our body weight and what we wanted to drink. I also selected scotch. My lab partner was an ISP trooper. He drank on Wednesday, I drank on Thursday. Between the timed drinks we did performance and writing tests. What an experience..
I'm surprised this didn't come up in the video. Its an approximately grade 4 math problem on the stand. As someone who has testified over a hundred times in such cases, the math is simple and despite its simplicity was tried up until the gov't here changed the rules. Now the courts can take judicial notice of an average elimination rate without an expert witness being called in to testify but the gov't also changed the law so that the drink after defense (as we called it) is no longer valid as the wording of the law is now on what you test with (its written in a way to punish people specifically who try to mess up the readings by having a bolus drink after the incident).
Wow…so much of that is bad science. Please for us explain how the machine is “designed to get air from the bottom of the lungs”….I won’t even point out that it wouldn’t make much physiologic sense even if you had some magical way of doing that…..
@@irgilligan the science is not debatable. It’s like saying gravity doesn’t exist. It’s not magic and if you understand the design, it makes perfect physiological sense. If you fixate on the science, you’re not only chasing a ghost, you’re missing the point. By far, the greatest source of variance with this equipment is not the design, it’s maintenance and operator irregularities. That’s why I recommend a blood test wherever possible. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. DUI defense attorneys gave up challenging the science decades ago because they got tired of losing the argument. Instead, they focus on discrediting operators and equipment maintenance.
I've seen something similar before and it worked for this person. A friend of mine was driving to my house. My road I was living on at the time has a corner that was literally 90 degrees. He decided to go straight when he got to it and drove into the woods then hit a tree and totaled his car. He walked to my house, about 2 miles from the crash. He came in bloody, bruised, and so obviously drunk. I was a young man at the time and we were having a party that night so he started drinking. He called the police himself to report the accident. By the time they got there it was around 2 hours after the actual crash. He told them that he was shaking so bad after the crash that he started drinking to calm himself down. The police never arrested him so he never went to court. This is far from stepping out of your car drinking, but it is something similar that I witnessed myself. However, I'm sure it has more to do with the discretion of the police officer at the time than it does the letter of the law
I was a tow truck driver, I saw many people drive drunk, crash and then leave and get away with it by claiming it was stolen. I only saw one man beat a DUI by claiming that he got drunk while his car was stuck in the ditch in the snow for like 4 hours. Since the car was disabled and he claimed to be getting drunk out of boredom after he slid off the road and he actually won.
I actually do know a guy who tried this here in Canada, he no longer has a license, and his son spent 4 hours looking for the keys from a forest on the side of a rural highway
I knew a buddy of mine's father who was a DUI lawyer. He told me about a case when he was a state prosecutor where the suspect pissed his pants and fainted during the sobriety tests. Even though he was under the legal limit he still got convicted because of his actions and behavior.
Step 1: don't drive impaired Step 2: never talk to police Step 3: hire an attorney that specializes in DUI/cross examination of lying cops Step 4: never drive
Close. Never take a breathalyzer blood draw or field sobriety test. Relinquish your license. Pay an Attorney. Pay for an uber or get a ride for 1 year. No evidence, no conviction. (presuming you aren't driving like a dingus) You can do the math on the cost of post DUI insurance and a DUI fines vs only attorney fees.
@@youKnowWho3311 Your answer is exactly what a lawyer wrote in an editorial piece in a Jacksonville Florida newspaper adding that you can always apply for a work permit drivers license for that year. Do Not ever blow the breathalyzer test as it's like giving up your constitutional right against incriminating yourself
@@youKnowWho3311 But won't the insurance co raise your rates because your license was revoked even though there was no DUI conviction? I think they would just because they want to. Anyone have an answer?
@@johnadams9723 Fact is that having a breath reading is not of itself sufficient to avoid conviction. Generally speaking the penalty for refusing testing is tapered to be the same as driving DUI and not could be just a lower penalty for a lower reading. Sorry John. Dumb answer.
@@johnadams9723 And the same newspaper has been of interest in not providing all the facts of cases. For instance appeals are often not reported where acquittal has been overturned and full penalty of the law enforced.
Not mentioned in the video, but important to note that your BAC (blood alcohol content) can be calculated days after even just a glass of wine. The amount of time down to the hour, and how much you drank can also be calculated, and will show how much you had.
A more likely approach would be to "accidentally" spill one of a number of solvents in the car and then claim that the breath test was skewed by inhaled vapors. I gather that diabetics have had issues with acetone giving false positives. I've also read (possibly legend) of a person who worked in an automotive paint shop having similar difficulties on his way home from work... he had neurological issues (possibly from long term exposure?) that cause him to fail some of the field sobriety test, resulting in the breath test being done.
I was on a jury for a DUI case in Massachusetts and found out something that I didn't know before. You can refuse the Breathilizer test in this state and give up your license for 45 days. This way when you go to Court proof of drunkeness is more subjective.
My father told me about the time in the 1930's one of his younger brothers, (my uncle), got drunk and decided to tear up the local baseball park infield with his model "A" roadster. He ended up running into the wooden bleachers, and screwed up the front of his car. Because one wire spoke wheel was all but destroyed, and a finder and part of the running board were dragging on the road, the local police simply followed the marks on the asphalt to their house. The fact that the driver was probably drunk was not lost on the police. But back then things were a bit less formal, and the Chief of Police agreed not to pursue the matter as long as my Grandfather, and his 5 sons, personally repaired the damage to the ball park, which they did. My Grandfather was easy going, but I doubt the other 4 boys ever let the offending sibling forget the incident.
Worth noting had that occured today, the result wouldn't be dissimilar. The police couldn't press for DUI as they can't prove the driver was drunk at the time. All they could prove is the vehicle caused the damage to the ball park, which is a seperate issue, and could be resolved with community service (only charge they have is for the vandalism). This was just informal community service saving everyone involved alot of time and money.
@@cgi2002; yes, that was a different time, with different values and expectations. In most ways we're better off today, but some of those old ways server people better. But, in life we must take the good with the bad.
One case I remember, that was reported in a newspaper, was a man who was charged with DUI because of the alcohol in his blood. (Long before portable breathalysers). He successfully fought the charge, on the grounds that he had a genetic defect that caused his body to make alcohol, so that even if he had not been drinking alcohol, there would be alcohol in his blood. .
* * * I drive for work; about ten hour shifts. Since I'm on the go, I frequently brush my teeth while driving and have a travel size Listerine bottle. Is there a difference of alcohols according to breath test machine? Although I do not drink alcohol (or the Listerine), I have some physical, medical ambulatory limitations that I could not pass a sobriety test. Obviously, I would be of clear mind, speech and so forth, what should/could I do if I brushed and rinsed recent to the pull-over?
This scenario was somewhat dealt with in "The Practice" TV series. One of their clients was in an accident and called them and Ellenor told the guy to grab the alcohol and start drinking. Anyone can can reject field tests without issue, but if they take you down town, you have to submit to one of those at the facility.
@@MusikCassette I did a quick search, looks like Season 3 episode 1. The client hits Bobby with their car and calls Ellenor and she obviously doesn't know it was Bobby that was hit and advises her client to start drinking.
well my cousin has wrecked 7 trucks due to DUI. On number 5 the cops took a while to get there. it was a rural river front community late at night. It took 2hrs for someone that wasnt family to see the truck in the woods and call the cops.When the cops found him he was at my other cousins house party doing a keg stand. Thing about that road at night is there were alot of wrecks because of deer (I don't swerve I've hit 4 deer on that road).The cops never bothered to do any tests on him. Never got charged for DUI they said because of the time between the accident and them showing up. However they gave him enough tickets to lose his license. I understand that it's not the same as getting pulled over on a well used road and chugging infront of them. Still was funny to watch play out. To be fair the county police down here had forced some female rape and crime victims to do nude cat fights. So our law enforcement at the time might not have done things exactly by the book.
Sounds like the porkers in your town are just that... porkers they dont need the respect due to an honest to goodness law enforcement officer of good moral integrity... if you find one let me know
I actually knew of a guy, who had a friend, who's uncle had a buddy, who tried this method to avoid a DUI arrest, when pulled over in the early morning hours, by two officers. He did actually get arrested, and was charged with DUI ... but, only after the officers beat the living crap out of him for "being stupid".
I hope he got that on his dashboard camera or his cell phone. Always turn your cell phone on to record and for a live Facebook feed if the police pull you over. And always buy the premium dash cam for your car that records both the front of the car and the interior of the car
I'm not finding anything in the MCL that compels participation with sobriety exercises. My understanding was that refusing a PBT results in automatic suspension but field sobriety tests can be refused without penalty in Michigan.
Steve, good presentation. I first heard of this legend in 1962. I won't waste your time with the slightly different version but realize that if you go back many decades this probably worked more than you think. Back then it was more of the officer's choice to pursue. No cameras, breath analysis, and other technology. As time passed so did the chance of this being successful and the idea became a legend.
45 years ago on TV, Jack Klugman in "Quincy M.E." took this defense apart: it takes time for alcohol to enter the bloodstream, and even a breath test is a blood test (the alcohol arrives at the lungs in the blood, not through the stomach).
It has happened to me. But what we do in Sweden is that we gather two blood samples with an hour in between. From the result from those two blood test the blood alcohol content during the time of driving can be calculated. There is some huge differences between Swedish and American laws. In Sweden you can not refuse to give a blood sample. If you refuse it will be taken by force. Normally blood is only used if the driver won’t or can’t take a breath test, or if we suspect other drugs.
It doesn't work in Finland, either. The story I have to back this up is kind-of similar to the last one with the crashed truck, but probably this driver had heard of the same urban legend. There's even probably a court transcript somewhere - but it'll be in Finnish. I can help track it down if need be. The basic facts of the case are: Russian-national driver and (terrified) British-national passenger drive at roughly twice the speed limit on a twisty country road in Finland, with the fairly predictable end result of ending up in a wheat field, upside down. Swedish-designed car kept good survival space and both occupants wore seatbelts at the time. Eyewitnesses stop to help, call emergency services, and reach the vehicle itself a couple of minutes later - they have to cross a ditch and wade through 50 metres of waist-high wheat to get there. Passenger has self-evacuated via the broken side window by then, and is found trying to help the driver to evacuate too. Police and ambulance arrive, driver is breathalysed, found to be above the threshold for "aggravated" drunk driving in Finland. Both occupants taken to hospital in nearest big city, found to have fractures (one clavicle each, plus one driver's arm), released the next day after initial treatment. Court hearing several months later, at which charges of Drunk Driving, Aggravated Drunk Driving, Reckless Driving, and Causing Grievous Injury by Reckless Driving are read. Passenger is present in court for full hearing, as a civil plaintiff as well as eyewitness for the prosecution. Other eyewitnesses are also called. Both driver and passenger attend assisted by tri-lingual interpreters, driver also represented by a defence attorney. Driver claimed to have been driving at "constant speed" (his words, though he probably meant a "reasonable" speed), that something went wrong with the steering and brakes of the car, that it had a weak engine and was incapable of reaching the speeds claimed by the prosecution - and, to explain the breathalyser reading, that he had found time to drink a bottle of mint-flavoured vodka between the moment of the accident and the time the test was administered. I believe such a bottle was, in fact, found in the wreckage. A complicating factor, also, was that the second sample (this time of blood) that had been requested of the hospital had not in fact been taken. This is where the evidence of the passenger came into play. He admitted that there was a gap of maybe a minute or two during which the driver was unobserved, after he evacuated and before the bystanders came close enough to see over the wheat. However, he noted that during this time the driver was stuck upside-down in the car, hanging from his seatbelt, and was noted to be completely dazed before the beginning of that period, and claimed to be temporarily blinded after being extracted (having received a blow to the head). The passenger had had to crawl halfway back in to release his seatbelt for him. The opinion was thus expressed that while it might not be *impossible* for the driver to have located and drunk the vodka during that period, it would have been so difficult as to be very unlikely. And due to his apparent injuries, there was no period after then that he was again unobserved (with one of the witnesses being an off-duty nurse). But there *were* also opportunities *before* the accident for the driver to have drunk alcohol, unobserved by him - and he didn't know the driver well enough (nor how to compensate for a thick Russian accent) to offer any reliable opinion on whether he'd already been drunk in the hour before setting off. The court ultimately upheld all the charges, except for the Aggravated version of the Drunk Driving charge. In the absence of the blood sample, and with the relatively small margin over the higher threshold that the breathalyser had read, there was insufficient evidence to uphold that one - but the lesser, non-aggravated Drunk Driving charge *did* stick. The clarity and consistency of evidence from the various witnesses also put the lie to the driver's other claims as defences to the Reckless Driving charge, from which the final charge naturally followed with simple medical-records evidence.
I've heard a lot of ways to beat a breathalyzer or a DUI charge, but the problem is if it actually worked, it would have been corrected by the law a long time ago.
How about all the people that were charged, and it stuck in the years before the breathalyze or video? They don't need the breathalyzer and have several other ways to get a convection.
There isn't a way to simply get off unless you are a friend of the officer, politician or fellow gang member. There are jurisdictions in the US where you can be arrested, charged and convicted even when they passed both blood and breathalyzer. The goal of a traffic stop is too often simply to officers trying to make an arrest quota or to get a bonus for making more arrests.
Law enforcement officers hate it! Use this one weird trick to avoid criminal charges!
Yes then make sure to ask for the video to go online to show the trick to more people.
I only drive while sober. Gets 'em every time.
NOBODY SHOULD GET AWAY WITH DUI! Disgusting! Why don’t you tell people how to get away with being a child serial killer? How many people do drunk drivers kill every year? Shoot the bastards
Can't wait to click on that and get a virus. Not covid, I'm sick of covid.
@@SvenTviking It's sarcasm. Talinthis is mocking any idiot that would try this.
Beat any DUI...don't drink and drive.
If only being innocent was enough to keep yourself from being locked up.
I just don’t drive.
Do your drinking early then go.....driving...
Lol
@@antlures845 It does reduce the chances, in this case.
It's like magic
There is no surefire way to avoid DWI arrest, including being sober .
LOL
Yes there is. Don't drive.
Sober by whose standard?
@@Jackaroo. you can literally be arrested for anything the cops decide in the moment and will most likely have to wait until your day in court to prove otherwise.
There's some special "training" cops can certify in that the officer can ascertain that an individual is under the influence by some arbitrary list. This training is not based, much less backed by science, but people's lives have been ruined by this despite being sober and verified by traditional means like urine and blood tests
I am not a lawyer, so my experience is necessarily limited, but everything I've read about interactions with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and even small-claims courts, has given me the impression that judges don't particularly like cheap tricks designed to mess with evidence, and this trick would *certainly* fall under that category.
Depends if you're the police.
😂😂 I got drunk on one glass of wine, out to dinner with Mom. Told her she'd have to drive me home. (I almost never drink and I find in general I react much more strongly to alcohol than other people. This was the peak, though.)
My Mother was removed as a Judge in the Malibu Court when she agreed with the defense of a person who got a ? ticket based on ? facts. The LACSD told her that she was either with them or against them before they moved to remove her and this was before the voters moved to remove the corrupt Sheriff a few years latter after stories ran in the times. So I can tell you that the Judges are afraid for their jobs when they rule .In my Mothers case my step dad was an LACSD and heard constant pillow talk of their methods so they both rad reason to worry .
they dont like when people are found not guilty
My favorite urban legend has always been the one that defies simple, common sense. It's the 'ol "You know, a cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him, right?" They say it with all seriousness, like they've never taken 10 seconds to think about how would the police be able to do ANY undercover stings?
The Supreme Court has ruled that the police can lie.
I don't know why the johns aren't all smiles. They got the female cop dead to rights for breach of contract, and damages will be huge from the persecution that followed.
Throughout my career as a peace officer I found it very simple to prove I was a "cop" but absolutely impossible to prove I wasn't.
@@bendover4154it’s like in the Constitution...of America.- BREAKING BAD-BETTER CALL SAUL
They don't have to tell a person they are a cop during the undercover operation. but they have to identify themselves before they arrest the suspect or it can be intrapment. but usually that never becomes an issue. because the undercover cops are so well disguised. that the suspects don't even think of having the undercover cops identify themselves. because it would blow their cover.
I've been driving since 1979, and drinking for longer, but have managed to never get a DUI conviction. One time I was pulled over on suspicion, but the matter was settled at the side of the road, so no court appearance on that. My method, while not exactly foolproof, is pretty solid. No trickery, no magic potion to drink to remove the alcohol, no mints, etc. I simply don't drive when I've had a significant amount of alcohol. Usually, going out drinking with friends, I either just have non-alcoholic beverages, or I have a sober person drive me home. Sometimes I'll have one drink, and then make sure it's a couple of hours before I drive. But mostly, I find it's easier to draw the line at zero. One drinking buddy claimed this wasn't true, as he'd seen me having not just beer, but whiskey too, and leaving soon after my last drink. What he missed was that my wife picked me up.
Good man.
That is definitely the most foolproof way of avoiding a DUI.
@@Dirtyboxer1 Yes, though I've watched enough Lehto's Law videos to know I could still be arrested for DUI, have all my stuff stolen by the cops, be forced to undergo a bunch of body scans and cavity checks, spend time in jail, before finally being released.
Knowing your limit goes a long way, planing/allotting time to sober up before leaving works for me.
If I question my ability to drive home I will often self preform the balance tests. If I fail myself I'm downing a large glass of water and waiting 30+ min, rinse repeat. Perfect?, Hell No, but its a decent self check.
Congratulations for being a normal, law abiding citizen.
I have seen someone beat a DUI. There is a certain formula: 1. get into a single vehicle accident in the middle of the night, 2. abandon the vehicle on the side of the road (you'll need someone to pick you up), 3. report the accident in the morning after you sober up, and most important: 4. be a professional sport figure in the area you do this. You will walk away with just a leaving the sight of an accident ticket and your sports car will be impounded.
It also helps if you're related to a certain prominent political family. Doesn't even matter if a girl drowned in the back seat after you drove your car off a bridge!
@@robertc.9503 Was thinking just this.
Worked for Ted Kennedy, and that involved a homicide.
@@robertc.9503 I was gonna say, Ted Kennedy followed this advice almost precisely, and it WORKED even tho Mary Jo died.
how about sports figures in drag?
In Hungary, we have a partial cover for this in the traffic code (1/1975. (II. 5.) KPM-BM együttes rendelet; 58. § (4)), which says that if an accident happened, you are not allowed to drink until police actions are complete. (Before I have checked it, I would have bet on that it covers a simple traffic stop too, but apparently, it doesn't.)
Actually is applied now in many jurisdictions.
I see a loophole for the sheriff.
Steve, I really enjoy your channel! :-)
I am a 51-year-old lifetime commercial real estate appraiser. Although I did not specialize in expert witness work, that is how I came up, before I started my own business. So I’m not completely ignorant of the rule of law. But I swear I would never have guessed that I find Law so fascinating when presented by you.
There is just absolutely something different about you, your presentation, your ability to make any and every case seem so compelling! You’re fairly fascinating brother! 💪👍♥️
looking forward to more great works! ⚖️
He'd be a great law professor (which I believe he _has_ been)
@@BlooCollaGal That's it on the nose. Steve here has taught Law before, and I'd say that's the main reason why his presentations are not dry as the Sahara desert. He's probably studied homiletics too. He's always clear when he talks too, you very rarely have to rewind the video to get when you thought he'd said. He's a natural teacher.
I have heard a story of someone got in an accident right in front of a bar. Then went inside and did a bunch of shots to calm his nerves after the accident.
I 'got away' with it once, when I was young and slightly less stupid. I drove home from the bar which was about 3/4 mile down the road from my apartment. The trooper car followed me down the road, and pulled into the apartment parking lot next to me. This was in January, the parking lot wasn't paved, and I parked on a higher spot. The trooper pulled in on ice. He never turned on his lights or siren. I was getting stuff out of my car when he got out of his car and stepped right on the ice and fell on his ass. I asked if he was OK. He said he was as he got up. He asked if I lived there. I pointed to my apartment. He said that I should tell the landlord to get the parking lot fixed, it's icy. Then he got in his car and drove off.
I accepted the fact that I just got insanely lucky, and have never done that again.
Yep, they afford to miss, you can't. Best idea, never DUI.
Hahahahaha
If you would've laughed, you would've been toast.
If you were less stupid back then, what kind of trouble do you get into today?
In the 70s when I was young and dumb (at least once I was underage) I got pulled over 3 times when I believed I was way over the limit. On each occasion the reason for the pullover was speeding or rolling thru a stop sign. AND CRUCIALLY, this was before Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and widespread public outrage over drunken driving. Once, the cops simply missed that I was drunk. The other two times, they knew I was sh*tfaced, and they told me they knew, but I was less than 2 miles from my house. On each of these occasions, they LET ME GO, after issuing a ticket for whatever infraction they had stopped me for.
Mind you, this was Maryland, and at the time they had 2 levels of severity for drinking/driving: You were presumed driving under the influence if your BAC was .10 or above, and you were presumed driving while intoxicated if your BAC was .15 or greater.
Then the mad mothers got involved and the world (and drunk driving laws) changed . . .
I've been arrested for dwi while being stone cold sober... unfortunately a cop can arrest anyone without proof of anything..
Same here. I lost 3 hours of my time and didn't even get an apology.
@@timetowakeup6302 dash cam can sometimes make think twice because you now have proof that you didn’t do anything wrong and yes they try to arrest you but in most cases they don’t want to hassle with video evidence on your side.
No they can't. You were drunk, if you got arrested for drunk driving.
I was arrested for DUI while getting a boat ready for the summer. I was taken to county lock up and I demand a breathalyzer. Breathalyzer test showed 0 alcohol. Still cost me $800 for the tow on the truck and boat then another $400 for the repairs for the boat motor not raised. Sold boat fuck national park rangers.
@@Normal1855 LOL Do you know everything?
There was an old show called Quincy M.E. that used that exact premise of drinking a lot after the fact.
A guy drove his car into a rival, killing him, then guzzled a fifth of booze before the cops got there. They ended up ready to acquit the guy saying the death was "accidental" (DUI laws were trivial in the 1970's) when Quincy got on the stand and said that a blood sample from a knee injury sustained in the accident showed no alcohol in the sample. But the blood samples taken after the crash showed him well over the limit. Really memorable episode. Good show.
There was some channel when I was growing up that played nonstop reruns of Quincy, that was a good show.
Now I want to watch the episode, it's been a long time since I've watched Quincy, I'll see if I can locate the episodes and repost it here
The inherent flaw in DUI laws is that blood alcohol levels over the legal limit do not account for a given individual’s tolerance to alcohol. Example: about 20 years ago I dated a police officer. I was a heavy drinker at the time and so she asked me to be a volunteer at the police department’s DUI training course wherein they give participants shots of alcohol, perform a breathalyzer, and then have them perform maneuvers on a closed off driving course. I did not show driving impairment until I hit .23 whereas one woman showed driving impairment at .05.
I no longer drink and am happier for it and strongly discourage people from drinking and driving but I’m also aware that BACs over the legal limit are not necessarily indicative of impairment.
15:40 I was pulled over once by a cop that was positive that I had to be drunk driving. Luckily I was able to clear it up when I explained that I was from New Jersey. 👍
I think the same thing about DC Metro area. Of course midwest states if your not weaving to avoid the potholes are more like canyons then they know it's DUI/DWI/OVI.
@@kisstune My Dad got pulled over for “weaving” when the cop following him was weaving the same to miss the same potholes.
I was pulled over for “weaving” on my motorcycle. I explained to the cop that “weaving” is how a motorcycle keeps from falling. He didn't understand the physics.
Not surprising as a guy who said that he had ridden his Harley for 40 years didn't know what he did to keep the bike from falling. When I saw it I realized that he really had the same motorcycle for 40 years.
Lol. That is a great one. In Pennsylvania, if you don't avoid the potholes, you are probably drunk.
@@kisstune Agreed. Some of the potholes on the Montgomery county side were real bad. Over the years, I've lost 3 tires and 1 rim to them.
Something similar happened at my Dad's workplace. Dad was a foreman and found out that an employee had liquor in his locker. When dad asked the employee about it, the employee pulled the bottle of out their locker and drank the little one that was in it and said there was now no proof(!) of alcohol in the locker.. Went very bad for the employee, as keeping the alcohol in the locker was not a firing offense, but drinking on the job was.
Went from please stop to you're fired. XD
Was he on a break?
@@glee21012 Doesn't matter if you're on break, it takes a lot longer than your break to get that alcohol back out of your system, so by the time the break ends you'd be drunk on the clock.
Damn he actually tried that ... the bottle was the evidence the action only worsened his situation...
Also if you jump out of the car and chug a bottle in front of the cops they can then also add drinking in public I assume.
While stationed in Mississippi, we had an individual who had been at a party. The police found his car wrapped around a tree. He was nowhere to be found. If I remember correctly, he was found at home. His story was that he had drank too much, so he let a guy who he had met at the party drive his car. He didn’t remember the dudes name. He was not charged with DWI. Had he been, the navy would have punished him also.
Thanks for all the information Steve. Glad to see a fellow Michigander on You Tube.
Pro tip. Avoid cops and the whole damn system at every possible opportunity.
Here's a better pro tip. Don't drink and drive and you won't have to worry about avoiding cops. Speaking for myself, I've found that that has worked out well for me.
@@ssmt2 I think that’s the most clear way. You may have missed that my comment didn’t say anything about drinking and driving. Simply avoiding the system all together.
When you’re right, you’re right.
@@cheesynuts4291 You're way is the best way but it's pretty difficult to do if you want to go out in public. I try my best to avoid cops but sooner or later you'll see one, even if it's while driving by one while you're on the road.
@south968 here here!!
Had a judge tell me once (traffic ticket) you clearly were not a fault, just pay court costs and be on your way. Your charging me money to be told I did nothing wrong!!!
@@ssmt2 and they target certain people
Here in Wisconsin years ago a guy beat a DUI. There were two occupants in the can, a Rolls Royce, and driving down the freeway swerving. A cop saw it and pulled the car over. He had the driver come out of the car and then tested him for alcohol. That person was legally way over the limit and was arrested for DUI. When it came to the court case the officer got up on the stand and testified. Once his lawyer started the cross examination he asked the officer to go over what happened. When he got to the part of walking up to the driver side the lawyer stopped him. He asked what side did he go to. The officer said driver side. The lawyer asked him again what side of the car, left or right. The officer responded the left side. Turns out the car was a right hand drive Rolls Royce and the officer arrested the passenger for DUI. Since the driver was never tested the case was dismissed. Pretty sure it was in Waukesha County and reported in the Milwaukee Journal. Likely more than 20 years ago.
BS
A trick in a rural area with many hills where I went to school was;
Cowboys always had a cowboy hat on the passenger side in the rear window.
More than 1 got pulled over & quickly slipped into the passenger side & pretended to be asleep.
The cops looked for the driver thinking he ran off, but he was in the passenger seat the whole time.
@@ryancmoore3000 Is that your nick name? I bet it is because it's a true story that when it happened was all over radio and tv. So go pound sand
I call BS.
First, before the police would allow the car to be driven away they would have verified the new driver is sober. Otherwise, they impound the car.
Second, if a cop walks up to the car and peers in the window, he would notice the car's missing steering wheel.
@@danielmarek4609 Still not seeing a link to the court hearing and transcript?
Hey Atty Steve! Thanks for all these videos of information. I have watched a number of them. I also noticed an "Alma mater" noting a Coast Guard relationship. I was in 81-85 aboard a Great White. Hamilton WHEC 715 "Shark-715" during all the HMIO's and GITMO REFTRAN with the USN and of course the proverbial drug interdictions along the Great Inagua's. Did you serve as JAG officer back in your time in or was it your jumping off point? Thanks for your time presenting this info!
Steve, I've read several of Brunvand's books. Great stuff. I've always enjoyed debunking bs stories. I got in fights when I was younger because I didn't believe the stories some kids would try and pull over on me. My parents used to tell me I should have been a lawyer because I liked to argue. But I was too ADD to sit & do research & study.
Really enjoy the channel.
73s!
For all the people saying "don't drink and drive it's that simple". No it's not. I was pulled over 5 years ago and arrested for "suspected DUI". They brought me down to the station to take a breathalyzer test. I blew a .00.
I didn't get so much as an apology from the tyrant coward who pulled me over and unlawfully arrested me. Lost 3 hours of my time and had to go through all that for nothing.
Complaining that you went free. Classy.
Thanks for avoiding drinking before you were arrested and I hope you didn't drive drinking or drunk after the experience.
@@RobertWilkinsonJKekMaloy, any decent person is going to be angry at an injustice and stealing of hours of his time!
@@RobertWilkinsonJKekMaloy no, he's complaining because he is FREE and a tyrant officer illegally detained him.
I hope you filed a complaint against the cop.
I despise drunk drivers, ever since I witnessed a drunk driver kill a young mother and her daughter many years ago. I am 66 years old now, and those few seconds are some that I will take to my grave, no matter what age I live to attain.
Thanks for sharing
@Peter Angles Sorry I don't understand the reference?
Real life true story. My brother went out drinking. Tried to drive himself home. He hit a tree close to my mom's home. Fractured his hip and wrist, but fear of a dui made him crawl/walk to my mother's house where she immediately called the police, (while my brother drank everything he could get his hands on while waiting). He did not get charged with a dui. He got charged with leaving the scene, which was dropped because he had no cell phone at the time and there were no other drivers injured or otherwise. They couldn't prove he drank before entering my mom's house. They charged him with a bunch of charges but once he went to court, all charges were dismissed..
That book, "Bad Girls Guide to the open road", my mom gave it to me the day I got my license (my 17th birthday), and it also teaches you how to use your car as an oven to make things like nachos and frozen burritos. It also teaches girls street smart and is part of a 'Bad Girls Guide" series. Great read.
There was a rich polo mogul / socialite in Wellington Florida who basically used this as his defense after he caused a fatal accident while driving drunk. This happened in 2010. He was still found guilty of DUI manslaughter and is currently serving 12 years in prison
Good, I'm glad justice was served. It's so rare these days.
@@Kaidkb It was 12 years ago. Today if your rich you get off.
@@user-tb7rn1il3q or if you resided in California you might get a significant reduction in sentencing due to DA George Gascon
John Goodman.
@@user-tb7rn1il3q other way around
I had an inlaw at one time who did get out of a dui after a wreck using similar tactics. He had rolled his truck on a backroad in ohio. After the wreck he grabbed his case of beer walked to road sit down and started drinking again (was a beer run so just left store with unopened case) by the time local Sheriff arrived at the scene he had consumed half the case of beer (45min before anyone showed up). All cans from new case beer was with him none in the truck. His reply to cops was he started drinking caused he wrecked his truck and had nothing to do while waited. Cops got him for failure to control but unable to issue a dui since it was such a long time from when he wrecked till cops arrived.
Worked for the Valdez captian in alaska as well. Just waited in the bar drinking.
Similar situation for a roommate in college. Wrecked and car caught on fire. Another driver gave him a few beers and he sat on the side of the road, drinking, watching his car burn, waiting for emergency services.
I'm not sure if the police opted not to charge or if it went to magistrate, but he did get away with it.
"an in-law at one time", typical urban myth beginning.
Can you give us or Steve the info necessary for him to look up the case to prove it? Remember, he offered to pay you for it!
@@donaldfrederick6814Again, can you provide the info so that Steve can look up the case and verify this? He offered to pay for it
Steve, you are good. Your presentations should be viewed by all drivers seeking their first D L!
Here in Grant County WI many years ago there was a DUI of someone on a motorcycle. They where pulled over for load exhaust not bad driving. They got out of the DUI when they compared the exhaust to a court house employees exhaust and found his to not be as load. The loud exhaust was the reason for the stop and the stop was now invalidated. For atleast the next 5 years any exhaust modifications where fined for loud exhaust and it didn't matter if it was a truck bike or your grandma leaving taco bell.
Don’t want a DUI? Don’t drink and drive. It really is that simple.
if only that were true.....
Variation on the $50 "death car" urban legend. I actually read this one in a newspaper article as supposedly real. In the newspaper story it supposedly happened in a neighboring state ("friend of a friend" becomes "state next to a state"). The story was that a new Porsche was advertised in the classifieds for sale for $50. For a few days nobody pays attention because it's assumed it's either a typo or a scam. So a young college student answers the ad and goes to look at the car and finds yes it really is a new Porsche and the woman really is selling it for $50. So after he buys the car he asks the woman why it was so cheap. The woman answers that her husband recently died and she then found out that he had been cheating on her with a mistress and that in his will the mistress was to receive either "the Porsche or the proceeds from its sale."
Wooooooow lol
A variation of that story that actually happens is in divorce cases.
Generally the judge, assuming the other party had a lawyer that wasn't asleep will say uhh yeah no, you are paying the value of the car, not what you sold it for as it was clearly so far below market value.
One variation of this I have heard was that the husband had fled to a different State with his mistress, and said "Hey, hon, I need you to sell my nice car and send me the proceeds! I'm stuck in this State" thinking that she doesn't know about the affair ... and she sells the car for $15 and says "here you go!"
I expect that to be about as true as any of these other things .... but it's *still* a funny story.
That story began 4 decades ago, when no Freedom living Americans would buy a Porsche, not even for $50! Those Haps are taking over! I know, it's German.
But, the story in the 70's was a 55 Chevy, like new, husband died blah blah. Then, it became a Corvette (65-69), son went off to Vietnam, store the car in Mom n dad's garage, got killed, and the parents finally decided to sell it. That's was the late 80's, early 90's version. So now it's a Porsche huh? I like the Corvette the best.
@@jeffcampbell2710 I read the story over four decades ago and it was a Porsche.
I've never been involved with any threat of receiving a DUI; although I have had the opportunity to get totally out of a speeding ticket for doing 81mph in a 55 (actually 93mph):
I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas and had a Stratos 355V Bass Boat with a Mariner 115HP Motor and was the Barracks Sgt. and as a thank you for taking one of the subordinates with me every time I took my boat to the lake for water skiing ( He was my go-to because he always watched where the boat was going while he was at the helm while I was skiing instead of watching the skier); was offered a 5 Day 4 night Bahamas Cruise for $59 (the port cost fee per person on the manifest). He was also the childhood sweetheart (since age 4) of the daughter of the Templeton Travel Agency owner who chartered a Cruise Ship every year for the Bahamas. He was given a free cruise every year but missed the previous year due to having been in Basic Training and/or AIT, and so was told to bring a friend. We took my car and towed my Kawasaki 650SX Jet Ski to his parent's home in Clearwater, Florida where we stayed for the two weeks leading up to the cruise. When we left for Miami the day of the cruise we were informed to be there by 1:00 PM and started down the West coast of Fla and were intending to head to Miami for our embarkation via Alligator Alley and after driving south about an hour we heard a newscast interrupt our program with the notification of a 23 car pile up on Alligator Ally blocking all traffic in both directions. I took the next exit and doubled back figuring that there was little chance we would get there on time and so I stepped on it because our 4 hour drive with three hours remaining to get there with an hour to spare just turned into a six hour drive with no time to spare by going north and cut across Fla via Tallahassee and go down the East coast. I got pulled over in Palm Beach County for doing 93 in a 55. I showed my License, Registration, and Proof of Insurance and answered the obvious question - "Why?" When I explained the situation the Officer did the unexpected. He said that the Cruise lines don't actually set sail until 3:00pm and said that if he actually ticketed me for the speed I was doing he would have to take me in and impound the car and totally ruin our vacation. He thanked us for our service and only issued a ticket for doing 81 in a 55 and cautioned us to stay under 5mph over the speed limit and reassured us we would get to Miami with time to spare before the cruise liner finished boarding. We thanked him and I put the ticket in the glove box and literally forgot about it until almost three months later when I was doing a detailed cleaning of my car. I panicked when I found it because I held a TS Clearance and this unpaid ticket could affect my clearance status. I called their collections office and asked what their standard late fee was ( and never asked if I had been assessed any late fees yet) and then went to my Bank and purchased a Cashier's Check for the total which included the late fee amount I was told over the phone. I mailed the paperwork and Cashier's check via certified express mail and received the same Cashier's Check in my mail a few weeks later informing me that they could not process the check because it was for more than what I owed and they had no ability to cut a check for the difference. I wrote them back and thanked them for refusing full payment of a just debt. Several months later I talked to a local Police officer in Copperas Cove, Texas and told him about it and he asked if he could run my Driver's License info and check on it for me. He said that the speeding ticket in Fla did not exist on my record. I contacted Palm Beach County and they then informed me that because they did not accept the payment (though they had a record that I attempted to pay the fine in full and they refused payment, they had no choice but to remove the ticket "revenue" from their records to balance the books as part of their annual year's end in-house audits. This also meant they removed the revenue-source ticket from their records - AND MINE!
Sometimes life can be exceedingly kind.
I was on a jury back in 96. The defendant was at a local racetrack. On the way home got food and took side streets. Said he was reaching for fries and hit a parked car. He stopped. Exchanged his info with the owner who heard the wreck and came out. He went home. An officer showed up later to take a report and accused him of smelling like alcohol .defendant denied it and was arrested. The defense argued he drank at home. The owner of the car said they noticed nothing off while exchanging insurance. For three days both sides argued his breathalyzer results and possible time lines. In the first juror vote I was the only one that said not guilty. After three more days we decided it was possible that he was not guilty and charged him with nothing. Don't know if you'd like more info or not. It almost applies here.
Most people don't know that you can be arrested for DUI after blowing a very low number (ie .02). If, the officer concludes that, in the totality of circumstances, your ability to drive was impaired by alcohol (in any amount), you will be arrested and likely convicted unless you have a very good attorney.
See people get arrested for 0.000. sadly some police departments get incentives for DUI arrests
See people get arrested for 0.000. sadly some police departments get incentives for DUI arrests
That "low" number can be applied for DUI IF the subject is on DUI probation, in most states, or a MINOR. There are "zero tolerance" laws that apply to repeat DUI offenders and/or minors that come into play, with a .02 or even .01 being legally considered as the detection limit for blood alcohol. If neither situation applies to you, while the officer COULD arrest you should you blow .02, or file charges anyway if you're arrested and you "blow" .02 at the station, unless there are some SERIOUS situations (like a collision, involving bodily injury, or an egregious moving violation, like excessive speed that would of itself constitute reckless driving or "exhibition of speed", either a misdemeanor involved, either they'll let you go without filing charges, or the DA will dismiss the case. While all states have a presumed level of intoxication, there's also a lower level where one is presumed to NOT be intoxicated, usually .04 or .05, that is difficult to overcome. However, outfits like MADD are continually pressing for these to be lowered to the detection limits, making one liable to a DUI charge if ANY alcohol is detected.
@@selfdo sickening, isn't it?
Jackson Wyoming going slow through a flashing yellow light pulled over and spent night in jail with 19 other DUI's. Had a glass of wine with dinner and a single beer at the famous cowboy bar after. I would have needed at least 3x's this amount to be above the legal limit. I guess it's just a scam and an abusive young officer. Next day walked out to one of the attorneys they suggest across the street, gave him my credit card and said I wouldn't be back. There was zero crime nor poor behavior. Evil is about and is frequently dressed in a uniform.
I saw a DUI trial in Orlando when I was in the Academy. The guy was lit up a block from his house. According to undisputed testimony, he drove on to his house and went inside. OPD knocked on his door and he came out with two scotch glasses and offered the officer a drink. He was arrested went to trial and was acquitted. It did not help that the LEO came off to the jury as a vindictive jackass.
he was supposed to pull him over BEFORE he got home and went inside.
@@DVankeuren I was on a jury (in California) that convicted when it wasn't even the cops who witnessed the driving. They did record the interactions at the driver's home, and administered a field sobriety test on-camera.
It doesn't matter how you meet the burden of proof. My guess is that the prosecution in the Florida case failed to do meet it, perhaps because the LEO damaged their credibility. My experience has been that juries take the burden of proof pretty seriously. "Probably guilty" wouldn't cut it.
@@DVankeuren Officer did not know (apparently) that he was literally 4 driveways from his house (or so) so the driver was able to pull into his driveway and enter the house before the LEO could even react. Which I think was another thing the jury looked at, he obviously made it home with no accidents or injuries to anyone. I am not saying it was right (if the driver was indeed DUI), just relaying the information.
@@BobKerns4111 I agree!
Once inside why come back out? Lock the doors and go to bed.
Florida lawyer here for 33 yrs, civil law only. Very interesting discussion, I have never heard this legend before. Your analysis makes sense though, and yep about Fla. man.
I first encountered this idea in the plot of a TV show, either "Hill Street Blues" or "NYPD Blue" (possibly "Law & Order"). After a man was involved in a fatal traffic accident, he called his lawyer from a payphone (yes, that long ago). He then ran into a nearby bar and ordered 8 shots of liquor (all at once). Upon being interviewed by police, the bartender said, "He was drinking like he had something to prove." I don't recall it working out any better for the character in that plot than for your examples.
"Florida Man" here. Best option is to never drink and drive! Love your channel!
26:36 Your assumption was so on point. This urban legend was on Mythbusters. They burried C4 Corvette with 2 pig's carcasses. They tried to get rid of its extreme smell but it was still aful. Couple of potential buyers turned down on a deal because of a smell. Then some guy came and bought it. When asked about if he said he's gonna disassemble the car for parts and sell them.
I was told by a friend of mine who is a Nassau County, NY police sergeant that in his career, he had responded to accident scenes where one of the people involved had, right after the accident, gave his info to the other driver and gone to a local bar and started drinking. The person said he was so upset about the accident, he felt he needed a drink to calm down. My friend also said he has had calls where a person who got into an accident gave information to the other driver, then left and went home. My friend went to the residence and was greeted by the person involved in the accident with a drink in his hand. In both cases, he knew it would be difficult if not impossible to prove that person was intoxicated before the accidents.
The story about the guys backing their truck up reminded me of something that happened in my town in about 2010. The story, as best as I can relate it comes from both police radio traffic (I am a police scanner fan) and an item in the Police Beat column in the paper. --- Drunk guy runs a stop sign and gets t-boned by the car that had the right of way. The accident breaks off one of his back wheels and bends the rear suspension down. Guy does not stop and leaves the scene (hit and run) Cops show up and see the wheel left behind and get the description of the car from the other driver. Cops notice scrapes in the road from the bent suspension and follow it. A few blocks later the scrapes lead up a driveway. Cops knock at the house, drunk guy answers ,claims innocence and refuses search of his house. Warrant is issued and it is discovered that he was the only occupant at the time and a car matching the description is in his garage, with a broken off wheel.
Was the drunk convicted?
@@dannydaw59 I don't know. What I heard was just as it happened on the police radio, and then a one paragraph bit in the paper a few days later.
Of course that makes him completely innocent.
What is the point of this short story?
One Halloween night when I was 18 or 19, I was coming back alone from a party dressed as Sargent Pepper (satin jacket, shades, etc) and had to pull into a convenience store to take care of some cottonmouth from the drinking/smoking I had done earlier. The store was closed but they had a Coke machine outside, so I started digging around under the seats for change, and when I thought I had what i needed, I popped up to see blue lights and a cop walking slowly to the back of my car. I freaked out and jumped out of the car (1980's - cops were less tightly wound) and told the guy "I'm just getting a soda!!". They officer jumped back a few feet and kept flashing his light between me and the car and said "Umm, how are you guys doing tonight?" I said "GREAT. I'm really thirsty!" and the cop slowwly backs away from me to go back to his car. he left (quickly) and, because I was not in my right mind, I thought "Oh, he must be busy". I got my soda and drove home.
It was only until the next day, when I reevaluated the situation, that I realized I had dodged a big bullet. From the cops perspective, there's a car stopped at a closed store and all he could see when he got closer was a guy dressed up in satin clothes and bobbing his head all around the passenger seat area. When I jumped out of my car saying I was thirsty, that's all the poor guy needed to hightail it out of there and find something else to do.
Years later, I told my wife about the story and she absolutely though it was all BS. I have since seen the light and don't do stupid stuff like that, but to the Merrimack, NH officer who stopped me on Continental Blvd in 1986 or 87: I'm really sorry for freaking you out like that.
Funny, and NOT "too strange to be true"!
Yes, 80's cops were much different. True police. And if you got arrested, you didn't get mad, because you was Guilty. They let me go drinking more than k can remember. "Mr Campbell! What are you doing drinking and driving"
Me- "Hey (insert FIRST name of cop, because we're friends *wink*).
Cop- "Don't let me catch you in town again tonight!"
I go ride around the county. Great times! Better days! Better Americans!.
@@jeffcampbell2710 - They were even less "wound up" in the 70s! Without writing a whole novel about the bizarre string of circumstances that led up to it, (because that's what it would take,) I actually rear ended a cop car on New Years Eve, at dusk, in the rain, on a blind curve, in the inside lane where the cop was waiting to turn left across two lanes of oncoming traffic. The road was not well drained, and I hydroplaned right into the back end of his 1974 Dodge Polara cruiser. The front end of my mother's 1970 Ford Fairlane 2 door was crushed, I hit the steering wheel, my knee hit the dash, and my glasses went flying. Back then, safety belts were not the big deal they would become later on, but this incident made me a firm believer from that day to this! I wound up in the ER of the hospital from which I had just spent two weeks and been released the day before. (I told you it was bizarre, but that's not the half of it!)
Terrified me wound up in court a couple of weeks later, having ditched the crutches just the day before, which I had been using since my ER visit, but still limping. The judge heard my story, the cop's version, questioned me seriously, to which I answered dripping with respect, and decided I should be charged with "Failure to maintain proper lookout" - although how I could have improved my "lookout" I never did get an answer from anyone - and that I must attend Defensive Driving School. It took a week, which was mostly a waste of time and money, because I had to lay out cash for the privilege. I learned nothing I didn't already know, but by passing the test with flying colors, the judge later dropped the whole business.
I had also dodged another bullet, as the State Point System was due to become effective not six hours after I had my little "run in" with the very surprised cop! Oh, did I forget to mention I was only 16 at the time? My 17th birthday was only 6 weeks later! The cop was basically cool about the whole thing, probably noticing I was already terrified enough about what had happened, hysterical about the damage to my mother's only car, plus having to be extricated from it and into an ambulance. That whole year was one I was not anxious to remember for a VERY long time!
In Texas, at least, you have the right to request a hearing within 15 days of refusing a breathalyzer to prevent your license from being suspended.
i think in texas if you refuse a blood test, they do it forcibly. i used to live there and i do remember reading it somewhere (before internet)
@@jgunther3398 only if there was a death or serious injury of someone other than the driver as a result of a collision (If that law a while back went through then only the above or if the driver has prior felony DWI intoxication assault or intoxication manslaughter convictions or multiple prior misdemeanor DWI convictions).
I once had a friend who got away with drinking and driving because he also had a cold at the same time. He didn't drink that much and did not have far to drive, and probably would have been fine even if given a breathalyzer test. What he did have in his car was a bottle of cough syrup, which usually has alcohol as an ingredient and is used as cough medicine. Cough, sneeze, blow your nose into your hand, and have a bottle of cough syrup nearby.
I had heard of a person using NyQuil. as an excuse for why their ignition interlock wouldn't work. but I can't confirm whether it was bullshit or not.
That was pulled on me years ago by Township cops. I had a friend that was a State Trooper and I gave him a call instead of my attorney. He came down, he knew that I had bronchitis and told them to let me go or he would kick the shit out of both of the Township cops for false arrest. I had the bottle of cough syrup in my pocket. He saw the prescription and said come on I'll take you back to your car. I was only less than a half mile from my driveway where the jerks pulled me over. I didn't even do any traffic violations for them to pull me over.
I forgot, I had not one drink that night to boot.
"The price men pay for their indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
Plato
Every time I've seen a cop get pulled over for DUI, they always always always refuse the field sobriety test. That alone should tell you never to take one.
I have an uncle with double digit license suspensions. Each one associated to a suspected DUI. No blood, no breath, no field test, no case. California they forcibly take blood. So results may vary.
@@bobeeman9730 It can take a couple of hours to draw blood (getting the warrant etc), you will metabolize the alcohol in the passing time, maybe below the threshold.
@@glee21012 you never met uncle Chuck. Haha
Because normally a refusal will not cost them their job.
@@bobeeman9730 Well if you cant walk, you will need more than a couple hours.
Another story I always enjoyed hearing was the Designated Decoy tale. Lots of sailors out drinking heavily and as they closed the bar, they knew that it was common for the cops to hide in shadows waiting to pounce and get one good DUI Traffic Stop.
So, at closing one bar patron would step out, swaying and weaving as he headed for his car parked out front, under the street lamp. As he approached the car, he’d drop the keys and laughingly bend over to retrieve them, but fail and fail. Then he’d crawl around until he could pull himself up and try miserably to unlock the door.
At this point the cops would approach counting on an obvious arrest. The young lad would pass his Roadside Sobriety Tests and then Blow 0.0, confusing the officers. Why, it was an act because he was the designated decoy, staying sober to allow the rest of the drinkers to leave during the show. Some urban stories are just stories!
This is similar to the argument used (and failed in court) where the defendant argues that their BAC level was below the minimum while driving but continued to rise, exceeding the limit, by the time the test was administered. The argument was that the defendant had recently stopped drinking and the alcohol had not yet been fully absorbed while driving.
I will say this as a biochemist and hematologist, breathalyzers have hundreds of false positives, to include pepperoni and slim jims, but blood tests don't lie. We can even draw a 2nd and 3rd sample and basically determine how much you drank and how long ago. However, some people are used to high alcohol levels and can appear to not be drunk and can pass field sobriety tests while their blood is telling you they are very drunk.
Second, i had to do jury duty for a dui... the cop failed the field sobriety test in open court. The cop was asked if he was physically fit to which he said he was. The defendant suffered vertigo and while i am not sure what this does to his driving, it most definitely did mess with his field sobriety test. The police managed to fuck up the blood test somehow and it wasn't admissible so we never knew what the value was.
But as a person literally called on testify that medical equipment gives legitimate results and have drawn and ran tens of thousands of blood tests, i was immediately critical of the police and the prosecutor's lackluster arguements and excuses as to why their was no blood test and how a physically fit police officer could somehow fail the field sobriety test.
All that being said, as a hospital employess, don't drink and drive. I have seen too many people in the ER, dead or severely injured due to being involved in a DUI related accident.
Anaphorysis technologist here and all I can say is you're damn right...
Simply put if you're a booze hound (no judgement if so) JUST STAY HOME
I am a private detective with a master's degree in forensic science. I was hired by a defence attorney representing a man who had gotten in a wreck where the other driver readily admitted fault. However, the police arrested the attorney's client for DUI. He refused a breathalyzer test, and after obtaining a warrant, they drew blood several hours after the crash. The GCMS came back as 0.24 -- three times the legal limit -- and based on the time interval, I conservatively estimated his BAC as being 0.32 at the time of the crash. The man pleaded out and moved to Germany, which of course is far less tolerant of this sort of thing.
You can’t get blood without a warrant. You are not getting warrants for misdemeanor DWI charges
Also for a breathalyzer to be valid there has to be a 20 min deprivation period with nothing in the mouth to eliminate the chance of false positives
@@m.hasler7263 Yes, it was done with a warrant, which are routinely obtained in Louisiana verbally by telephone or or by fax. There will be a judge, magistrate, or justice of the peace on rotation who will be available at all times to do it. In this case, he was arrested by the parish Sheriff, and a warrant was obtained over the phone at the scene and the blood was drawa at the Louisiana State Police Troop office in the same jurisdiction.
@@davidcookmfs6950 must be nice to be there. New Mexico will only do warrants for felony DWI charges (4th or higher) or GBH/deaths
saw the title and said to myself: "ummm don't drink and drive?"
This same thing happened in South Carolina to our Chief Justice of the SC Supreme Court. Back in 2001, she had an accident with a parked car. She left the scene. The state trooper showed up to her house and knocked on the door. She answered the door with an alcoholic drink in her hand. She was only cited for leaving the scene of an accident. I guess it is all who you know.
Confirmed
I have a friend that was drinking, skidded on ice and flipped his car. He got a ride home and when he answered the door when the cops showed up, dank a beer. Git him for leaving the scene but not drinking.
That's not even similar to what this video was about.
Wasn't that captain Hazelwood from the Exxon Valdez ? Lol, I think I read where his defense was he was so shook up from what happened that he went to his cabin and slammed some whiskey , maybe I'm mistaken, p.s. I'm from Middle Twp, Cape May County NJ, and know the players in the Van, open container story....great video as usual!
My favorite way to get out of a DUI is to not get drunk! It usually works, although you still need to pay attention and know your rights regarding testing.
Not to split hairs but there is a legal distinction between being "drunk" and DUI/DWI. Being "drunk" is behavior related - as a result of an intoxicating substance. DUI requires a driver being in excess of a specific amount of blood alcohol limit.
@@MrJuxone the statute in many states is twofold…DUI which doesn’t require any particular BAC and the second section which is DUI over the limit. So you can be under 0.08 and still get arrested for DUI if the officer thinks you are impaired.
@@someonespadre i understand your point but in many states if one fails to register .08 for DUI. (.05 for impaired), then there should be other supporting evidence of impaired driving e.g blood, urine test results. But I was speaking of the use of the work DRUNK.
Back in the late 70's I personally tried the "get out and drink" in a small mid west town (yes i was young and dumb) but it actually worked. I did get out of the DUI arrest at the scene, but it didnt end there. I got tickets for public intox and disturbing the peace because i may or may not have aggressively left some rubber on the road coughcough. Those cost me a couple hundred dollars in fines, which was significant money back then but nowhere near what a DUI court case would have been plus the points on my license and/or jail time. I didnt have to go to court and just mailed in my payment. Thankfully the local cop gave me a break and instead of an arrest for DUI, he let my girlfriend who was with me and not drinking, drive me and the car back to my house while he followed behind until we got there, then he told us that he was going to make his rounds and he better see the car in the driveway when he came by or there would be hell to pay. If that were to happen in todays world, i would have been arrested and the car impounded etc. etc., but back then, small town cops had a whole different attitude about enforcing laws, they used their judgement and based it on the severity of the offense. If there wasnt something more serious involved like property damage, an accident or injury, they were more inclined to resolve the issue right then and there.
You're referring to peace officers, who used the law to keep the peace, vs. law enforcement officers, who enforce the law as an end in itself.
Dude, they probably would have just drove you home if you didn't pull all the crap. At least that's what everybody tells me about the '70s around here.
True, several friends were always given a ride home. Unfortunately, the deputy would wake up mom and dad to go retrieve the car from the scene! Oh and the odor of an alcoholic beverage was mentioned! Mom and dad were always worse than a stranger judge!
@@davesomeone4059 Well in Buffalo NY they would drive you home in the 70's because that's how my father got home at least twice a week . Move forward to the early 80's and when my older brother downed a 6 pack in front of the cops he knew he was going to jail for driving without a license and he was never charged with a DWI because the cops beat it out of him so he made it a habit to take an ass beating over a DWI charge
@@randyspencersr.4927 Haha yea that era is gone huh?
Reminds me of a story my criminal law professor told our class about a client he had or from another Lawyer that had gotten out of an OWI. That "story" about his client that called him asking what he should do when he drove his semi-truck into a ditch. The client states that the proprietor of a house near the accident has called the police and he may have had been drinking earlier and was possible over the limit which is less for a Semi driver the a regular vehicle operator. The client was driving an Amheisor-Busch distributional vehicle full of Alcohol into a ditch.. The professor a former County Attorney (Or a Lawyer he knew of) told him to take a twelve pack out of the back of the truck leaving the back trailer door open or up. Told him to quickly pour 2 or 3 bottles of beer in the woods a few feet away. Placing the empty bottles back in the case and sit with it and a half empty beer in your hand at the back of the trailer. When the police come stay there and tell them a deer ran in front of you and you had swerved to miss it causing the accident. Then seem visible shaken saying I was so distrait seeing my life flash before my eyes so I threw a couple beers back just to calm his nerves. Now me Professor had lots of crazy stories but I tended to believe most of them. His name is Tom Jolas and this was Iowa. I can't be sure if this was a real true event or just a farce, but it sounded legit maybe only Tom knows. Unfortunately I see Tom Passed away in 2019. Coincidently In addition to his legal practice specializing in real estate law, Tom owned a wholesale beer distributorship at one time. Either way he was a hell of a good story-teller and teacher!
Not to outdo Steve but I heard this 62 years ago, 2 yrs after my getting my 1st D L a week after turning 16. Never forgot it and never missed to loudly laugh.
Having been hit by a drunk driver in 2001 and suffered permanent disfigurement and disability because of it, I have a deep personal animosity about these schemes.
I hate drunks and do anything I can to get one stopped.
If I were king, I'd categorize the first offense of drunk driving as assault with a deadly weapon with a minimum sentence of at least 5 years. 10 or 15 years would not be too harsh. Second offence would be either life on a chain gang without possibility of parole or just execution. There is absolutely zero excuse for a single person to drive drunk and drunk drivers murder about 10,000 people a year and cause 300,000 to 400,000 accidents, many of them with VERY serious, life long consequences for the victim. We've always had taxis, designated drivers, plain old NOT DRINKING and drinking in a place where no driving will be required, now we have Uber and Lyft etc, there is absolutely no excuse for drinking and driving.
@Peter Angles Yes, stop drinking.
@@mattobermiller5041 an excuse? no... an explanation sure, people make bad decisions all the time, people make way more bad decisions after drinking, id bet the vast majority of people who drink and drive wouldnt never consider that they would actually do it while sober, but once drunk their decision making suffers.. theres no excuse to do most crimes, is there a great reason to rob a store? assault your wife/partner, first degree murder? drunk driving is the only one i hear people say theres no excuse for jut because theres alternatives.. theres alternatives to most crimes, most of them are get a job an straighten your shit out, dont do drugs and dont get into altercations.. easy to say keep it on the straight and narrow harder to do.. many people believe they can drive fine while drinking and to be fair some can and theres obviously varying levels of drunkenness' someone getting a DUI after 3 beer is pretty unnecessary.. someone driving after 20 drinks is probably not far off from just firing a gun at random in any direction
to be clear before we jump to assumptions i dont have a DUI, nore do i condone drinking and driving... but like any crime it starts with bad decision making
Thank you Steve, you make the law educational, fun and entertaining 😀
Former officer in MO. A blood draw series under consent or warrant can show a BA curve and used as evidence. But that all depends on jurisdiction, how much work and officer will put in, and if a prosecutor is willing to go with it.
Thought I was going to hate the story but ended up loving it. Something tells me you are a public speaker.
Ben - Being backed up against the shelf by the white race car. Steve's left.
Beat me to it. Good eye!
In the mid 80’s a guy I worked with had a family member that worked for the DPS in Texas. (Department of Public Safety) He said that in Academy one instructor advised this same thing. Keep a sealed pint of liquor in the glove compartment and if you’re pulled over, break the seal in plain sight and guzzle it.
So the pint is supposed to be used in case your drinking while driving and get pulled over? So this dumbass is planning on drinking and driving and has a plan if he gets stopped? Many people complain about the DUI they got because it costs them thousands in legal fees and maybe loss of license. But what these a-holes dont realize is they got off lucky. They could have caused bodily harm, maybe even killed someone and gone to prison for manslaughter as a result...let alone destroying lives, and all these douchebags are whining about is losing some money? Worst people in the world...no brains, no morals....I really hope they do'nt breed their recessive genes into the population.
I actually worked for many years with an auto mechanic who grew up in his families auto salvage yard. He said they commonly got stinky cars that had been died in, mostly wrecks, and they simply lit a big stoggie and set it in the ash tray, closed all the doors and lit it burn down to nothing. He necer said how they got rid of the cigar odor though.
I knew of a case back around 1992 where something like this happened. He was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy for a broken tail light and was probably just over the limit which at the time was .10%. He got out of the car, opened a bottle of whiskey, took a few swigs (mostly gargled & spit) and poured the rest out. The officer made him do a field sobriety check, which he passed. He was then ordered to do a roadside breathalyzer, which he refused. He was arrested for DWI.
At the station, he was given a breathalyzer against his consent and blew a 0.11%. The DA filed to have his license revoked for refusing the roadside breathalyzer, but dropped the DWI charge.
The kicker is that his army unit referred him for a summary courts martial in which he was found guilty and reduced in rank from e3 to e1.
The field sobriety is another element of the DUI that is often abused. If the investigating policeman is willing to lie in his affidavit, he can testify about what parts of the test someone failed, whether they passed or failed. "After standing on one leg for 4 seconds, the defendant lost his balance and I had to catch him before he fell." Or, the infamous, "I detected the strong odor of alcohol coming from the car and about his person." You're toast. Believe it or not, juries still believe the old hackneyed "but cops have no reason to lie". If there is a quota (or a reward system in place, cops have many incentives to lie about the odor of alcohol.
Gotta love the “this one time” stories and people believe it. I am truck driver and just some of the stories I hear that people claim are true are some good ones.
A coworker of mine (yea yeah, I know) a 3 years ago was charged and convicted of being intoxicated while in "care and control" of a motor vehicle. He was at a bar with friends drinking all night. At the end of the night he called his girlfriend to come pick him up because he was clearly drunk. He decided he would go and wait in his car for her. While sitting in the driver's seat, he fell asleep. The car was not running, his keys were in his pocket. Before his girlfriend got there, a police officer noticed him, tested him, and subsequently arrested him. Apparently the penalty for being intoxicated with in care and control of a vehicle is exactly the same as a DUI.
I know this story because I had to personally deal with this from our company's standpoint. It was the first time I heard of "care and control".
I mean, it sort of makes sense. You never know if a drunk person with their keys in their pockets might just turn on the car and drive. It sholdn't be as bad of a charge as an actual DUI tho.
People have been stung for that while asleep on the back-seat because the keys were in the vehicle with them,not even on their person.
So this doesn't surprise me at all.
In the Dakota's this is called "Actual Physical Control of a motor vehicle" I have arrested many folks on that charge over my time as an officer. You see, My mom walked using a brace after being rear ended by a drunk driver. My sister was driving the car with mom and one of her friends in it, My sister died some years later of brain cancer that was thought to have been related to the fact she lay in a coma for over a week after her head went through the steering wheel of the 1959 Ford. This was in 1967 so you can imagine I did not tolerate excuses for DUI or APC when I came upon them. Having grown up in a family where drinking and fighting among the family I was known on the PD to be the one to call when a drunk was holed up with a gun or hostage because I knew how to calm them down and get them out. I guess there are advantages to most everything if you look for them.
The keys need to be out of access under the seat or somewhere that cannot be readily gotten to.
I do this at least once a week. The local LEO just expects it now and we just sit on the side of the road and finish the fifth while telling fishing stories. She is now a bigger alcoholic than me.
"... one beer doing that ..." can be reasonably assessed. The reading found can be adjusted to account for it. After all we have guidelines to suggest how much will produce a violation. Plus it takes time for alcohol to enter the bloodstream.
Whenever I hear these hypotheticals on drinking and/or driving, I always imagine what Randy Marsh would do. Seeing a lot of dashcam footage, a lot of people apparently put it into practice.
I THOUGHT THIS WAS AMERICA
What seems to be the officer, problem?
@@bilbobaggins1934 While that is undeniably tragic and a horrible loss for you and yours - - - Dude, way to kill a good South Park reference.
I thought for DWI they don't have to prove what substance caused the impairment, just that the driver operated the vehicle while impaired. This may include legally prescribed medication.
The story variant I heard was the driver who hit a lamp pole, near the corner bar. He went in to the bar, bought several drinks, while waiting to be tracked down by the cops. This gave him the bartender as a witness.
Funny thing about urban legends is that some elements of the story can be true. In the 1970s, while I was in the US Navy stationed in San Diego, we taught our young sailors that if they came out of the bar (usually at closing) too drunk to drive, to get in the back seat and sleep it off there in the bar parking lot and let the sun wake them up. But the cops started waking them up and using the argument that if they had the keys in their possession, they could operate the vehicle.
So we started teaching them to leave the keys outside the car, behind the tire (on the ground) while they slept, so they could not be found to able to operate the vehicle and if the car had a back seat, to climb in the back. Parked, No Keys, Private Property Parking Lot, gave them a better chance to beat the charge, but of course then the cops started trying: The Public Drunkenness charge instead. It goes to the part of your story about tossing the keys out the window.
In PA they add what’s called the old, “failure to drive safely”. Nailed me for DUI even though I tested under legal limit
I have heard a similar myth that two guys were speeding on a highway. Knowing that the cop just pulled out or passed them and is turning around to pull them over they pull over to an off ramp and park. They turn off the car and both get out of the passenger door. They sit on the trunk with the keys between them and wait for the LEO to come up and approach them. Both deny being the driver and the officer never saw one of them driving. Since he can’t prove which one was driving he lets them go. And of course it is always a friend of a friend of a friend’s brother who pulled off this brilliant move. I have heard this from multiple people over many years in various forms.
This one actually seems plausible... especially out away from "civilization."
@@DeadlyPlatypus I'd arrest both, and let the DA flip a coin for who to offer immunity to have testify. Once chance in two we get the driver. One chance in two we give immunity to the driver.
Good think your not named Tater. Or you would be charged with Drunk in PUBLIC!
@@joshuahudson2170 Lose lose. Whichever gets immunity says they did it. Like the other one is going to call him a liar and get locked up for drunk driving.
I was advised by an attorney in 1977 to have this as a strategy to avoid dui / dwi conviction. Like some other people, I do not drink and drive so the advice has never been tested
I..about 2004.. did to what the boys who hit pole did. Similar. It worked for me. (with police) I had consumed all or part of a 32oz "big gulp" coke with Seagrams Seven over a few hours.. I hit a parked car on a narrow residential street, mid afternoon in my 1 Ton pickup. I parked. Did not feel "influenced" but below .08 bac ? Idk. The homeowner/carowner called MPD and came outside. He was calm, friendly,, said it was a company car (new). We chatted on his porch. I made a drink (knowing that.).It took 45 min for an officer. Cop and carowner took my info. Like Columbo officer said "Oh..one more thing..have anything to drink?" I said "Well yeah..while waiting I ..ect" The officer gave me a short father like lecture..."Oh..now you should never do that because impossible to tell..ect" I said "I'm sorry didn't even think about that". He was probably observing me just as a trained officer would and didn't see intoxication. But still might be over 0.8.? Maybe/ Probably.
Damage
One ton Chevy : bent bumper/ fender $300. New Ford Taurus $17,000. Fixed it, not totalled!! Mike Buhler,, Modesto CA.
In 77, they would just tell you to get ur ass home.
As a Florida Police Officer I dealt with a FLORIDA MAN driver that did exactly this! I am a former FL LEO in and from Okaloosa County FL in Fort Walton Beach. In the 90's when I was a Fort Walton Beach Police Officer I was sent to a house in which a wife had an injunction (restraining order from a Judge) in which her husband could not come within 100 feet of her or her (their) home. She said her husband kept stalking her, harassing her, driving by the house honking his horn and yelling at her in the process. He drove by her house while we were stand at her front door. I chased him down an conducted a traffic stop on his vehicle. As he exited the vehicle he opened a "handle" of Vodka" (1.75 L bottle) and chugged down the Vodka as I walked towards him. I struggled to get the bottle away from him! As a result I let him slide on the DUI and arrested him for stalking his wife repeatedly along with violating the Judge's Restraining Order. Needless to say I would bet it's happened to many other officer's as well. I actually saw him break the seal. I wonder how many officer's without cameras would have just lied or embellished what they saw and acted like the liquor bottle was already opened.
Dang this kind of mentality is right up there with the "I'm in my driveway on my private property, you can't pull me over now"
Biology and chemistry are stacked against someone who tries this to get out of a DUI charge. Former Indiana certified breathalyzer operator here. First, different states use different equipment to run breath tests. So, operational rules for S&W breathalyzers are different from intoxilyzers, gas chromatographs, and so on. But all rely on common scientific principles. One, a human body metabolizes ethanol at a rate of .015% per hour. Administer two tests at least 30 minutes apart, and you can extrapolate backwards to a driver’s BAC at the time of the stop or the time of the accident. Anyone at or over .30, we aren’t sticking around for a second test, we are headed straight for the ER. Two, Henry’s Law states that the content of alcohol in the breath is 1/2100 of the content in the blood. Proven science. All equipment that tests breath employs Henry’s Law. The equipment is also designed to capture and test alveolar air from the bottom-most part of the lungs which allows the most accurate sampling. Subjects are observed for at least 30 minutes prior to testing to ensure they take nothing by mouth. I was a breathalyzer guy so I can’t speak for the other equipment types, but six substances will create a result on a breathalyzer - ethanol, methanol, isopropanol, acetone, ether, and cigarette smoke. That’s why nothing by mouth for 30 minutes prior. FSTs are goofy, the old fashioned ones anyway like finger to nose, picking up coins, walking heel to toe, and so forth. Defense attorneys invariably ask the arresting officer to perform the same test in court, and many cannot. Eye nystagmus test has become more popular, but is really subjective. Some agencies use little handheld alcohol detectors, but I think they are a waste of time. I liken FSTs to throwing a pass in football. Three things can happen, and two of them are bad as a motorist. One, you submit to a FST and fail; you’re getting a breath test. Two, you refuse a FST; you’re getting a breath test. Three, you submit to a FST and pass, you might get a break. Are there bad operators and poorly maintained equipment out there? Sure but I don’t think it’s widespread or the courts would dismiss a lot more DUI charges. Regardless, I would always follow a breath test with a blood test if possible, or ask for a blood test in lieu of breath if that’s an option. Better yet, as many other commenters pointed out, don’t drink and drive and you never have to worry about it.
I agree with you, I was a certified Initializer operator my self, because cops don't like getting woke up at 3:30 AM to run the machine, our small department had us all certified to operate the machine and, of course State law required periodic recertification, a 3 day affair where the first day the laws and operation of the machine were reviewed, the second and third day were practical's, in which half the class were operators, the other half were given their alcoholic beverage of choice and got drunk with breath tests AND blood tests every half hour. We were given cards and such to make the drinking and testing time bearable. You make good friends state wide at those classes! Being a Scotch lover I was a bit disappointed that they would not buy me me my preferred brand which was rather expensive but a cheaper more well known brand. It took me 13 straight shots to put me over the .10 which was the arrest percent at that time in ND.
@@JerryEricsson Jerry, I had a very similar experience at the Indiana course in Plainfield. On Monday, we had to fill out a slip,with our body weight and what we wanted to drink. I also selected scotch. My lab partner was an ISP trooper. He drank on Wednesday, I drank on Thursday. Between the timed drinks we did performance and writing tests. What an experience..
I'm surprised this didn't come up in the video. Its an approximately grade 4 math problem on the stand. As someone who has testified over a hundred times in such cases, the math is simple and despite its simplicity was tried up until the gov't here changed the rules. Now the courts can take judicial notice of an average elimination rate without an expert witness being called in to testify but the gov't also changed the law so that the drink after defense (as we called it) is no longer valid as the wording of the law is now on what you test with (its written in a way to punish people specifically who try to mess up the readings by having a bolus drink after the incident).
Wow…so much of that is bad science. Please for us explain how the machine is “designed to get air from the bottom of the lungs”….I won’t even point out that it wouldn’t make much physiologic sense even if you had some magical way of doing that…..
@@irgilligan the science is not debatable. It’s like saying gravity doesn’t exist. It’s not magic and if you understand the design, it makes perfect physiological sense. If you fixate on the science, you’re not only chasing a ghost, you’re missing the point. By far, the greatest source of variance with this equipment is not the design, it’s maintenance and operator irregularities. That’s why I recommend a blood test wherever possible. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. DUI defense attorneys gave up challenging the science decades ago because they got tired of losing the argument. Instead, they focus on discrediting operators and equipment maintenance.
I've seen something similar before and it worked for this person. A friend of mine was driving to my house. My road I was living on at the time has a corner that was literally 90 degrees. He decided to go straight when he got to it and drove into the woods then hit a tree and totaled his car. He walked to my house, about 2 miles from the crash. He came in bloody, bruised, and so obviously drunk. I was a young man at the time and we were having a party that night so he started drinking. He called the police himself to report the accident. By the time they got there it was around 2 hours after the actual crash. He told them that he was shaking so bad after the crash that he started drinking to calm himself down. The police never arrested him so he never went to court. This is far from stepping out of your car drinking, but it is something similar that I witnessed myself. However, I'm sure it has more to do with the discretion of the police officer at the time than it does the letter of the law
I was a tow truck driver, I saw many people drive drunk, crash and then leave and get away with it by claiming it was stolen. I only saw one man beat a DUI by claiming that he got drunk while his car was stuck in the ditch in the snow for like 4 hours. Since the car was disabled and he claimed to be getting drunk out of boredom after he slid off the road and he actually won.
I actually do know a guy who tried this here in Canada, he no longer has a license, and his son spent 4 hours looking for the keys from a forest on the side of a rural highway
I knew a buddy of mine's father who was a DUI lawyer. He told me about a case when he was a state prosecutor where the suspect pissed his pants and fainted during the sobriety tests. Even though he was under the legal limit he still got convicted because of his actions and behavior.
Step 1: don't drive impaired
Step 2: never talk to police
Step 3: hire an attorney that specializes in DUI/cross examination of lying cops
Step 4: never drive
Close.
Never take a breathalyzer blood draw or field sobriety test.
Relinquish your license.
Pay an Attorney.
Pay for an uber or get a ride for 1 year.
No evidence, no conviction. (presuming you aren't driving like a dingus)
You can do the math on the cost of post DUI insurance and a DUI fines vs only attorney fees.
@@youKnowWho3311 Your answer is exactly what a lawyer wrote in an editorial piece in a Jacksonville Florida newspaper adding that you can always apply for a work permit drivers license for that year.
Do Not ever blow the breathalyzer test as it's like giving up your constitutional right against incriminating yourself
@@youKnowWho3311 But won't the insurance co raise your rates because your license was revoked even though there was no DUI conviction? I think they would just because they want to. Anyone have an answer?
@@johnadams9723 Fact is that having a breath reading is not of itself sufficient to avoid conviction. Generally speaking the penalty for refusing testing is tapered to be the same as driving DUI and not could be just a lower penalty for a lower reading. Sorry John. Dumb answer.
@@johnadams9723 And the same newspaper has been of interest in not providing all the facts of cases. For instance appeals are often not reported where acquittal has been overturned and full penalty of the law enforced.
Not mentioned in the video, but important to note that your BAC (blood alcohol content) can be calculated days after even just a glass of wine. The amount of time down to the hour, and how much you drank can also be calculated, and will show how much you had.
A more likely approach would be to "accidentally" spill one of a number of solvents in the car and then claim that the breath test was skewed by inhaled vapors. I gather that diabetics have had issues with acetone giving false positives. I've also read (possibly legend) of a person who worked in an automotive paint shop having similar difficulties on his way home from work... he had neurological issues (possibly from long term exposure?) that cause him to fail some of the field sobriety test, resulting in the breath test being done.
I was on a jury for a DUI case in Massachusetts and found out something that I didn't know before. You can refuse the Breathilizer test in this state and give up your license for 45 days. This way when you go to Court proof of drunkeness is more subjective.
If you did that in CA, they'd suspend your license for 1 year or more.
@@steppenwolf3252 And if you blow and give them evidence, you will lose your license, pay fines, court fees, and insurance costs. The choice is easy.
My father told me about the time in the 1930's one of his younger brothers, (my uncle), got drunk and decided to tear up the local baseball park infield with his model "A" roadster. He ended up running into the wooden bleachers, and screwed up the front of his car. Because one wire spoke wheel was all but destroyed, and a finder and part of the running board were dragging on the road, the local police simply followed the marks on the asphalt to their house. The fact that the driver was probably drunk was not lost on the police. But back then things were a bit less formal, and the Chief of Police agreed not to pursue the matter as long as my Grandfather, and his 5 sons, personally repaired the damage to the ball park, which they did. My Grandfather was easy going, but I doubt the other 4 boys ever let the offending sibling forget the incident.
When protect and serve meant something
Worth noting had that occured today, the result wouldn't be dissimilar. The police couldn't press for DUI as they can't prove the driver was drunk at the time. All they could prove is the vehicle caused the damage to the ball park, which is a seperate issue, and could be resolved with community service (only charge they have is for the vandalism). This was just informal community service saving everyone involved alot of time and money.
@@cgi2002; yes, that was a different time, with different values and expectations. In most ways we're better off today, but some of those old ways server people better. But, in life we must take the good with the bad.
One case I remember, that was reported in a newspaper, was a man who was charged with DUI because of the alcohol in his blood.
(Long before portable breathalysers).
He successfully fought the charge, on the grounds that he had a genetic defect that caused his body to make alcohol, so that even if he had not been drinking alcohol, there would be alcohol in his blood.
.
* * * I drive for work; about ten hour shifts. Since I'm on the go, I frequently brush my teeth while driving and have a travel size Listerine bottle.
Is there a difference of alcohols according to breath test machine?
Although I do not drink alcohol (or the Listerine), I have some physical, medical ambulatory limitations that I could not pass a sobriety test. Obviously, I would be of clear mind, speech and so forth, what should/could I do if I brushed and rinsed recent to the pull-over?
This scenario was somewhat dealt with in "The Practice" TV series. One of their clients was in an accident and called them and Ellenor told the guy to grab the alcohol and start drinking. Anyone can can reject field tests without issue, but if they take you down town, you have to submit to one of those at the facility.
I wanted to site the same thing. do you know what episode it was?
@@MusikCassette I did a quick search, looks like Season 3 episode 1. The client hits Bobby with their car and calls Ellenor and she obviously doesn't know it was Bobby that was hit and advises her client to start drinking.
This is the comment I was looking for.
They weren't to happy with me for keeping the paper mouth piece. Sorry, not leaving my DNA for you to use.
well my cousin has wrecked 7 trucks due to DUI. On number 5 the cops took a while to get there. it was a rural river front community late at night. It took 2hrs for someone that wasnt family to see the truck in the woods and call the cops.When the cops found him he was at my other cousins house party doing a keg stand. Thing about that road at night is there were alot of wrecks because of deer (I don't swerve I've hit 4 deer on that road).The cops never bothered to do any tests on him. Never got charged for DUI they said because of the time between the accident and them showing up. However they gave him enough tickets to lose his license. I understand that it's not the same as getting pulled over on a well used road and chugging infront of them. Still was funny to watch play out. To be fair the county police down here had forced some female rape and crime victims to do nude cat fights. So our law enforcement at the time might not have done things exactly by the book.
Sounds like the porkers in your town are just that... porkers they dont need the respect due to an honest to goodness law enforcement officer of good moral integrity... if you find one let me know
A friend of a friend of a friend of mine told me this was another great episode!
I actually knew of a guy, who had a friend, who's uncle had a buddy, who tried this method to avoid a DUI arrest, when pulled over in the early morning hours, by two officers.
He did actually get arrested, and was charged with DUI ... but, only after the officers beat the living crap out of him for "being stupid".
Lmao you had me in the first half
I hope he got that on his dashboard camera or his cell phone. Always turn your cell phone on to record and for a live Facebook feed if the police pull you over. And always buy the premium dash cam for your car that records both the front of the car and the interior of the car
And remember if a cop asked you to delete the video, instead loaded up to the internet and then delete it
Cop ask you to delete the video tell him or her to F themselves
I'm not finding anything in the MCL that compels participation with sobriety exercises. My understanding was that refusing a PBT results in automatic suspension but field sobriety tests can be refused without penalty in Michigan.
Steve, good presentation. I first heard of this legend in 1962. I won't waste your time with the slightly different version but realize that if you go back many decades this probably worked more than you think. Back then it was more of the officer's choice to pursue. No cameras, breath analysis, and other technology. As time passed so did the chance of this being successful and the idea became a legend.
dui was taken a lot less seriously in general before the technology to quantify it arrived. i never thought of the correlation before
45 years ago on TV, Jack Klugman in "Quincy M.E." took this defense apart: it takes time for alcohol to enter the bloodstream, and even a breath test is a blood test (the alcohol arrives at the lungs in the blood, not through the stomach).
How does sitting on the bottle to drink help the breath smell?
It has happened to me. But what we do in Sweden is that we gather two blood samples with an hour in between. From the result from those two blood test the blood alcohol content during the time of driving can be calculated.
There is some huge differences between Swedish and American laws. In Sweden you can not refuse to give a blood sample. If you refuse it will be taken by force.
Normally blood is only used if the driver won’t or can’t take a breath test, or if we suspect other drugs.
It doesn't work in Finland, either. The story I have to back this up is kind-of similar to the last one with the crashed truck, but probably this driver had heard of the same urban legend. There's even probably a court transcript somewhere - but it'll be in Finnish. I can help track it down if need be.
The basic facts of the case are: Russian-national driver and (terrified) British-national passenger drive at roughly twice the speed limit on a twisty country road in Finland, with the fairly predictable end result of ending up in a wheat field, upside down. Swedish-designed car kept good survival space and both occupants wore seatbelts at the time.
Eyewitnesses stop to help, call emergency services, and reach the vehicle itself a couple of minutes later - they have to cross a ditch and wade through 50 metres of waist-high wheat to get there. Passenger has self-evacuated via the broken side window by then, and is found trying to help the driver to evacuate too. Police and ambulance arrive, driver is breathalysed, found to be above the threshold for "aggravated" drunk driving in Finland. Both occupants taken to hospital in nearest big city, found to have fractures (one clavicle each, plus one driver's arm), released the next day after initial treatment.
Court hearing several months later, at which charges of Drunk Driving, Aggravated Drunk Driving, Reckless Driving, and Causing Grievous Injury by Reckless Driving are read. Passenger is present in court for full hearing, as a civil plaintiff as well as eyewitness for the prosecution. Other eyewitnesses are also called. Both driver and passenger attend assisted by tri-lingual interpreters, driver also represented by a defence attorney.
Driver claimed to have been driving at "constant speed" (his words, though he probably meant a "reasonable" speed), that something went wrong with the steering and brakes of the car, that it had a weak engine and was incapable of reaching the speeds claimed by the prosecution - and, to explain the breathalyser reading, that he had found time to drink a bottle of mint-flavoured vodka between the moment of the accident and the time the test was administered. I believe such a bottle was, in fact, found in the wreckage. A complicating factor, also, was that the second sample (this time of blood) that had been requested of the hospital had not in fact been taken.
This is where the evidence of the passenger came into play. He admitted that there was a gap of maybe a minute or two during which the driver was unobserved, after he evacuated and before the bystanders came close enough to see over the wheat. However, he noted that during this time the driver was stuck upside-down in the car, hanging from his seatbelt, and was noted to be completely dazed before the beginning of that period, and claimed to be temporarily blinded after being extracted (having received a blow to the head). The passenger had had to crawl halfway back in to release his seatbelt for him. The opinion was thus expressed that while it might not be *impossible* for the driver to have located and drunk the vodka during that period, it would have been so difficult as to be very unlikely. And due to his apparent injuries, there was no period after then that he was again unobserved (with one of the witnesses being an off-duty nurse). But there *were* also opportunities *before* the accident for the driver to have drunk alcohol, unobserved by him - and he didn't know the driver well enough (nor how to compensate for a thick Russian accent) to offer any reliable opinion on whether he'd already been drunk in the hour before setting off.
The court ultimately upheld all the charges, except for the Aggravated version of the Drunk Driving charge. In the absence of the blood sample, and with the relatively small margin over the higher threshold that the breathalyser had read, there was insufficient evidence to uphold that one - but the lesser, non-aggravated Drunk Driving charge *did* stick. The clarity and consistency of evidence from the various witnesses also put the lie to the driver's other claims as defences to the Reckless Driving charge, from which the final charge naturally followed with simple medical-records evidence.
I've heard a lot of ways to beat a breathalyzer or a DUI charge, but the problem is if it actually worked, it would have been corrected by the law a long time ago.
How about all the people that were charged, and it stuck in the years before the breathalyze or video? They don't need the breathalyzer and have several other ways to get a convection.
Thanks Steve! Love it! 😀
There isn't a way to simply get off unless you are a friend of the officer, politician or fellow gang member. There are jurisdictions in the US where you can be arrested, charged and convicted even when they passed both blood and breathalyzer. The goal of a traffic stop is too often simply to officers trying to make an arrest quota or to get a bonus for making more arrests.