Time of Driving

A closer look at the charges that comprise a DUI reveals that the time that you were driving the car is of utmost importance. For example, one of our clients works at restaurant that closed at midnight. After it was closed, he had a couple of beers as he was finishing up his work for the night. Leaving the restaurant at about 12:15 for the 10 minute driving home, he was pulled over about halfway home. The officer approached, asked our client if he had been drinking, and then asked him to do Field Sobriety Tests. About 15 minutes after he was pulled over, he gave a preliminary breath test of .078%/.081%. His blood was drawn approximately an hour later, and was tested to be at .09%. In other words, because he had consumed the alcohol right before he drove home, his alcohol level was still rising. Using the breath and blood test results together, his alcohol level at the time of driving was about a .07%.

It is important to remember that the facts and circumstances of each case are different and unique. However, in order to calculate what your alcohol level was at the time you were driving the vehicle, the prosecution must be know two things. First, they must be able to prove when you were driving the vehicle, which can be difficult to establish in cases where there are no witnesses to driving, such as when the police contact a car broken down on the side of the road, single car accidents, etc. Second, the prosecution must also know when you started drinking, when you stopped drinking and what you were drinking. If the officers did not get this information from you, or if they got inaccurate information from you, then an experienced Ventura County DUI attorney can make the prosecution’s job very difficult. Please click here to contact one of our Ventura County DUI attorneys for a free consultation to have some of these factors explained to you in more details.