You go to a college party with your friends, already planning to spend the night. This is a big event and you plan to drink a lot, so you know that it won’t be safe to drive. You pride yourself on planning ahead and staying safe.
The next day, you wake up on your friend’s couch and leave before anyone else is awake. You’re driving back to your apartment when the police pull you over for rolling through a stop sign. The officer says that he smells alcohol and gives you a breath test. To your surprise, you fail it and get arrested. What happened?
How long was it since your last drink?
The biggest question to ask is how long it has been since you had the last drink of the night. Remember, your blood alcohol concentration doesn’t drop immediately, nor does it drop faster because you’re asleep. It’s very possible to still be intoxicated when you wake up the next morning, and you can get a DUI even though you tried to avoid drinking and driving.
Say you had eight drinks at the party. It may take up to 10 hours for your BAC to get back to zero, and that’s if you’re a male. It often takes even longer for women. It also depends on a lot of factors like weight, how much you had to eat, whether you drank any water and how quickly you consumed those eight drinks.
What should you do now?
If you are facing serious legal charges despite your best efforts to avoid them, you need to know what legal defense options you have. A drunk driving charge has many potential defenses, and an honest mistake shouldn’t be allowed to affect your entire future.