This Easter weekend, people are going to head out to gatherings with family members and friends. Making sure that you have a suitable way to get home is imperative if the gathering will include alcoholic beverage offerings. One thing that you shouldn’t ever do is assume that you are sober enough to make it home after you’ve had a couple of drinks.
Alcohol can decrease your inhibitions. You might feel like you can drive safely, but the actions you take behind the wheel might provide a different story. There are specific tell-tale signs of drunk driving that police officers look for when they are patrolling. With this being a holiday weekend, they might be paying closer attention than usual.
Some of the more common signs of a drunk driver include swerving or drifting from one lane into another. Crossing the centerline, braking erratically and failing to obey traffic signs and signals are also signs that a driver is impaired. These all provide officers with the reasonable suspicion they need to pull a person over and find out if they are too impaired to drive.
If an officer thinks that a driver is drunk, they will try to find out whether this is true or not. This can be done by asking the person to take a field sobriety test. It can also involve a roadside breath test. If this breath test comes back with a report of the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) being too high, the person will likely have to take another test on a better-calibrated Breathalyzer machine or through a urine or blood test.
Throughout this process, remember that you have specific rights. This includes the right to remain silent and to have your Miranda rights read to you if you are being detained and questioned. Make mental notes about whether your rights are being upheld or violated so you can discuss this later during the development of your defense.
