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DUI Enforcement

The following is the opinion of the author and is not intended to give legal advice addressed to any one specific person, or situation. The reader is advised to seek legal counsel if prosecuted for DUI. This information is of general nature intended for readers age 21 or older and is based on California law.

Drinking and driving, although not illegal per se, is still a dangerous combination. Please, designate a non drinking driver, use public transportation, or do not drink. If you are stopped for suspected DUI, it is possible that a mistake in judgment will be made by the officer resulting in your arrest. Nearly 45% of all DUI arrests do NOT end up in a DUI conviction. Officers are human and may mistake fatigue for alcohol. Machines are not perfect. If you end up being arrested, call a qualified CDL attorney to be sure of the facts."

THE BASICS:
Let's start with some basics. Driving while under the influence of alcohol or any other drug is antisocial behavior. The horror caused by the death or maiming of a loved one by a “drunk driver” is unthinkable. The pain caused by such an incident scars forever not only the victims but the drinking driver, who is usually a decent, law abiding citizen. No sane person would want such a thing to happen to anyone, ever, not even once.

However, what if elected officials use this terrible blight on society as an excuse to whip the general public into frenzy and to capitalize on the human misery flowing from this carnage, only for the purpose of getting votes in the next election? And what if other effective remedies to the Driving Under the Influence problem are ignored deliberately ignored? What if the liquor and restaurant industries pay big bucks into the political coffers of these same elected officials or chapters of MADD to lobby against legislation directed at the liquor and restaurant industries’ contribution to the problem? (By the way, did you know that in order to get a liquor license a restaurant or bar normally has to demonstrate that it has adequate automobile parking facilities?) Finally, what if you realized that one of the great motivating factors in the conviction of supposedly drunk drivers is the fact that the government collects a bounty of about $1,400 in penalty assessments over and above the mandatory fine to pay for programs and trinkets that the voters never would authorize in the wake of Prop. 13?

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