• Business and Finance
• Family
• Computers and Internet
• Auto and Trucks
• Education
• Health
• Hobbies
• Home Improvement
• Legal
• Marketing

• Home
• Arthur's Articles Home
• Browse Categories
• Browse Authors
• Submit an Article
• Search for Articles

Home » Legal Articles » 5 Tips To Help Avoid A Dui Conviction

5 Tips to Help Avoid a DUI Conviction

If you are ever arrested for drunk driving (also called DUI for "driving under the influence" or DWI for "driving while intoxicated"), your experience will begin with an officer stopping you because of some questionable driving pattern, or possibly because you encountered a DUI "sobriety checkpoint" or you were involved in an accident. The officer will approach your car and ask some questions. You will then be asked to perform "field sobriety tests". He may also ask you to breath into a handheld device, technically called a PBT or "preliminary breath test". You will then be arrested. On the way to the police station, you will be asked to submit to a breath or blood test -- and told that if you don't, your driver's license will be suspended.

What should you do and say during all of this to minimize the risk of a criminal conviction and a license suspension?

1. Politely decline to answer any questions without an attorney present. It is a cardinal rule in legal circles that only incriminating statements are included in police reports and later testified to in court; statements pointing to innocence are invariably ignored, forgotten or misinterpreted. Bluntly put, whatever you say will almost never help you and can only hurt you.

2. Decline to take any so-called field sobriety tests. These are theoretically intended to determine impairment, but in fact are designed for failure. In most cases, the officer has already made the decision to arrest and is simply going through the motions and gathering further evidence to bolster his case (he is the one who decides whether you "pass" or "fail"). In almost all states, you are not required to submit to this "testing". It's unlikely that taking it will change the officer's decision to arrest.

3. Decline to take a "PBT" (preliminary breath test). These handheld units are carried by officers in the field to help decide whether to arrest or not and are notoriously inaccurate. In most states, drivers are not required to submit to these tests (in some they are required if you are under 21). Although most states admit the results of these tests into evidence only to show the presence of alcohol, some permit them to prove the actual blood-alcohol level.

4. Do you choose blood, breath -- or refuse to take any chemical test? This is a case-by-case decision, and involves a number of considerations. First, although blood tests are subject to many possible errors, they are generally more accurate than so-called "breathalyzers"; if you feel your blood-alcohol level is below .08%, then you might want to choose the blood test. Secondly, whether to submit to testing at all requires some knowledge of your state's laws -- specifically, the consequences of refusing. If the increased criminal penalty and license suspension do not outweigh the possible benefit of depriving the prosecution of blood-alcohol evidence, then you may wish to refuse. Bear in mind that the prosecution will charge you with two offenses, DUI and driving with over .08% blood-alcohol; without a blood or breath test, he cannot prove the .08% charge, and there will be no chemical evidence to corroborate the officer's testimony. You should also realize that in many states chemical evidence of a very high blood-alcohol level, say over .15%, can trigger more severe penalties.

5. In almost all states, your driver's license will be immediately suspended if either (1) the chemical tests results are .08% or higher, or (2) you refuse to submit to testing. You have a right to a hearing to contest this administrative suspension, and there are many possible defenses, many of them technical in nature. This hearing is usually separate from the criminal proceedings, and involve different procedures and issues than in court; it is not uncommon to lose the criminal case but win the suspension hearing. However, as most motor vehicle departments do not really want the time and expense of providing these hearings, they tend to provide notice of the right buried in fine print given to arrestees. The critical information is the requirement that an actual demand for the hearing must be made by the arrestee -- usually within ten calendar days. If you do not contact the DMV within ten days, you lose all rights to a hearing -- no matter how good a defense you may have. Tip 5: Get an attorney right away, or make the call yourself -- and make sure you can later prove you made the call within the ten day window!

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

Get Fast and Convenient UK Unsecured Loans without Any Risk

Money is needed for any kind of growth or development in your life. Be it financial or personal, you need money to reach a higher position than what you are presently on. On your way of reaching these heights, you might find at some point of time that you do not have as much fund as you require. In order to remove this financial obstruction from your way, the financial market has come up with unsecured loans UK, which will help remove money shortage from your life.

Unsecured loans UK are offered to UK residents in order to satisfy their varied needs. As they are unsecured, they obviously do not require any collateral. So it doesn't matter whether you own a house or not. Here, both homeowners and tenants can apply for unsecured loans.

To avail unsecured loans UK, your credit history becomes very important. Since there is no security with the lender, the lender makes sure about your repayments capabilities and for that he needs to know your credit history. If your credit history comes out to be a good one, you will get a very good loan deal with a considerable loan amount. However, bad credit holders also have equally good chances of getting an unsecured loan. UK lenders offer unsecured loans to all bad credit holders with low interest rate and easy repayments. Thus, it can help you get rid of debts sooner and improve your credit score.

With unsecured loans UK, you can borrow an amount ranging from £1000 to £25,000. However, the amount varies from lenders to lender. The average repayment period of this loan is about 10 years. The monthly installments and interest rate is decided accordingly.

You can easily get an unsecured loan UK if you fulfill certain qualifications. In order to avail this loan you must be a UK citizen. You are also draw a minimum amount of salary which varies from lender to lender.

You can avail unsecured loans UK without having to tell the purpose of taking the loan. That means you can use your loan money for whatever purpose you want to like home improvements, wedding expenses, purchasing car, holiday package or any other.

Unsecured loans UK provide you a series of benefit. First of all they are available at a very affordable rare of interest. Secondly, they are offered without any collateral. So you need not put your property on risk to avail unsecured loans. Due to the availability of online loans, the loan approval process is also very quick. Online unsecured loans UK, also gives an option to get details about various lenders available in the market and compare their rates. This helps in getting the choosing the lender which suits your financial position and also getting the best loan deal.

Getting an unsecured loan was a problem for few years. You had to spend a lot of time and money in order to get a suitable lender. But now UK lenders are offering fast and easy unsecured loans that will help you solve your financial problems and make a good living