Legal Drinking Limit Could Be Lowered

It's been 30 years since significant changes in drinking and driving laws have changed the way American's approach their alcohol and driving habits. The standard rule put into affect by most states is that driving with a blood alcohol content of more than .08 percent could result in a conviction. Since this limit became standard in the 1980s and 90s, countries throughout Europe experimented with even lower limits to see the effect they had on drinking and driving accidents. What they found may not be good news for drivers who think they can push themselves up to the legal limit.

The NTSB, or National Transportation Safety Board, released a series of recommendations that included a lowering of the legal BAC level to .05 for all states. This would match the .05 level used in more than 100 other countries who report seeing drastic declines in drinking and driving accidents. While the United States also saw major declines in incidents involving alcohol after the .08 level was put into place, highway safety proponents say that is not enough.

It's hard to tell at this point if the new BAC recommendations will have a chance at passing in most states. The original levels were met with strong resistance from state legislatures and much of the public, so new lower standards may take along time to implement or may not even pass in the near future. It's also not clear what affect this will have on enforcement. The lower limit may motivate local police department to conduct more stops and set up more sobriety checkpoints around San Diego County. As people get used to the new limits, it may result in the need for more DUI lawyers.

DUI Checkpoints in San Diego

DUI checkpoints are a very common law enforcement tactic for catching drivers who are intoxicated on on the roadway. Checkpoints are popular during major party holidays (New Years, Saint Patrick's Day, 4th of July) and on late weekend nights. While checkpoints are allowed by the supreme court, there are certain limitations when it comes to how and where sobriety checks are conducted. The primary guideline involves the randomness of searches; officers cannot select cars to inspect based on their own criteria. Some critics of checkpoints have complained that police have violated this rule in places like Escondido.

Your Rights at a Checkpoint

No one should drive on the road under the influence of alcohol; however, that does not mean you should be forced to sacrifice your constitutional rights when you get stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. If you are stopped by an officer and they ask you to perform a sobriety test, including a breathalyser or field test, you have the right to refuse without penalty. If you are arrested for drunk driving, however, your refusal to submit to a blood alcohol content test can result in stiff penalties. This is because California law states that any driver on the road provides implied consent to any sobriety test.

Constitutional Concerns

The 4th Amendment of the U.S. constitution protects individuals from searches and seizures unless a warrant is issued by a court of law. The supreme court acknowledged that sobriety checkpoints violated this protection; however, Chief Justice Rhenquist argued that this minor violation of civil rights was justified by the overwhelming concern to get impaired drivers off the road. Many other justices at the time disagreed, saying that there should be no exceptions to constitutional protections.They also noted that there was little evidence to support the use of DUI checkpoints in reducing drunk driving incidents.

Immigration Checks  in Escondido

Early in 2012, the City of Escondido was involved in a controversy surrounding their use of sobriety checkpoints to check the immigration status of drivers. For every driver caught drinking and driving, ten were found to be driving without proper documentation. Federal agents with ICE work with the Escondido police to help deport individuals discovered with an undocumented status at these checkpoints. Civil rights critics have complained that these sobriety checks unfairly target the Latino population of the area.

San Diego Woman Charged with DUI Related Death Pleads Not Guilty

A court case involving the tragic death of 25-year-old woman on Route 52 in San Diego continued today. The defendant is accused of driving with an alcohol level around .2 percent, which exceeds the state legal limit of .08 percent. She allegedly crossed the highway's dividing line and collided her truck with a smaller vehicle. DUI cases in San Diego are treated very seriously by the police and prosecutors. Drunk driving incidents that involve the serious injury or death of another can be met with prison sentences of years or decades. In this case, the defendant faces up to 10 years if convicted. Life altering cases like these require legal representation from a DUI attorney who has extensive experience in this area of the law.

Here are some of the details according to CBS8 News:

"SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A woman who allegedly drove the wrong way while drunk on state Route 52, causing a head-on crash that killed the other driver, pleaded not guilty Thursday to a felony charge of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.

April Thompson, 23, was ordered held on $250,000 bail. She faces up to 10 years in state prison if convicted.

Deputy District Attorney Michael Runyon said Thompson was driving westbound in the eastbound lanes of state Route 52 around 1 a.m. last Saturday when she crashed her Chevrolet truck head-on into a 1970 Volkswagen Beetle driven by 25-year-old Jayme Alan Midlam. He died at the scene and Thompson was treated at a hospital for moderate injuries."

Read the rest of the story here.