DUI – The Wise Drive

December 1, 2022July 18, 2024

Listen to Your Pharmacist – Medications and DUI

Q: I just had surgery and I was prescribed some pain killers that say, “Do not drive a motor vehicle or operate machinery.” I’m sure that’s good advice, but is there any law that I’m breaking if I drive after taking my medication?

A: Who do you visualize when I say, “Impaired driver?” If you let your brain respond without a filter, you’re probably imagining a person staggering out of a bar, fumbling with their keys, slurring their words, and all that goes along with too much alcohol. It’s the image we’ve been shown in movies and impaired driving public service announcements, so it’s hard not to default to that.

December 2, 2021July 18, 2024

We’re All Part Of The Impaired Driving Solution

This week I’m turning things around a bit. Usually you ask the questions, but this time I’m going to do it. Or more accurately, I’m going to repeat a question that Washington Traffic Safety Commission asked: “What have you done to stop someone from driving drunk or high?” Folks responded, and their answers are worth sharing.

Maybe you’ve been in a situation where an impaired person intended to drive and you knew it was up to you to make sure they didn’t. In that moment you might have felt like you were out there on your own. I hope that after you’re done reading this you’ll know that you’re not. These stories (and actual research data) show that when you prevent impaired driving, you’re part of a team that includes a lot of us. How many? A survey of Washington drivers found that 80 percent of people in a situation to intervene have taken action to stop someone from driving impaired. Here are a few of their stories.

December 10, 2020July 18, 2024

Getting a DUI for Talking on Your Phone?

Q: Is it true you can get a DUI for texting or talking on your phone while driving? I’ve heard that people have gotten arrested for it, and that doesn’t seem right.

A: In 2017 Washington legislators overhauled our distracted driving law which, despite being only being ten years old, was already obsolete. Actually, it was obsolete within weeks of being passed. Back in 2007, when our first distracted driving law was written, it prohibited holding the phone to your ear to talk and sending text messages. That seemed reasonable at the time because the only thing you could do with a cell phone was call and text. That all changed with the launch of the iPhone, which came out in, you guessed it, 2007.

October 6, 2019July 18, 2024

DUI Checkpoints In Washington

Q: I know some other states, as well as British Columbia, use DUI checkpoints to catch drunk drivers. I’ve never seen them in Washington. Why not?

A: The answer you’ll most often hear as to why Washington doesn’t use DUI checkpoints (also called sobriety checkpoints) is that they’re unconstitutional. And that’s almost true. However, that’s not the whole story. I should first clarify that when we talk about DUI checkpoints being unconstitutional, we’re referring to the Washington State constitution. The US constitution doesn’t prohibit DUI checkpoints, unless you’re in Texas, where they prohibit checkpoints based on their interpretation of the US constitution. Some states have laws authorizing the use of DUI checkpoints, while others have no explicit statutory authority either endorsing or prohibiting them. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia use DUI checkpoints.

August 18, 2019July 18, 2024

Cannabis Won’t Make You More Sober (Yep, Some People Think That)

Many times I’ve referenced data showing that more than half of all traffic fatalities in Washington involve an impaired driver. When stated without more context, it’s easy to reach a false conclusion about impaired driving, and here’s the myth: If half of all fatal crashes involve impairment, lots of people must be driving impaired. In reality, few people drive impaired, and a recent survey of Washington drivers confirms it.

July 21, 2019July 18, 2024

Cannabis Consumption When Your House Can Drive

Q: I live in an RV and I’m a cannabis user. I’m trying to abide by the law, which says that you can only use cannabis in a private location, which for me is my home. But my home is a vehicle and I don’t want to get a DUI. Can I use cannabis in my RV legally?

A: I’ll begin by thanking you for your effort to keep your cannabis consumption within the bounds of the law. But if you’re only allowed to consume cannabis at home, and your home can drive on the road, what do you do? I appreciate your concern, so I’ll start by putting you at ease; this isn’t actually the problem you think it might be.

July 7, 2019July 18, 2024

Traffic Law vs. Safe Driving – Part 2

Q: Is it legal to text while riding bike on a public road? I saw this yesterday.

A: This seems like a great opportunity for Traffic Law Vs. Best Practice, Episode Two. A few weeks ago we covered several examples of how the law sets a pretty low standard for road user behavior. Those cases were all for drivers, so this time let’s focus on bike riders. Should you text while riding bike on a public road? No, of course not. That would be ridiculous. Is it legal? Pretty much. I’ll explain.

May 12, 2019July 18, 2024

Who Doesn’t Buckle Up?

Instead of a reader asking me a question, this week I have a question for you: Do you know anyone that’s received a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt? It’s entirely possible that you don’t. Washington ranks in the top five states for seatbelt use, with close to 95 percent of vehicle occupants wearing a seatbelt. The four states ahead of us are mostly neighbors; Oregon, California, Hawaii (sort of a neighbor), and Georgia, the geographic outlier. The state with the lowest rate of seatbelt use? New Hampshire, at about 68 percent. Its state motto is, “Live free or die.” I’m pretty sure General John Stark was not thinking about seatbelts when he wrote that in 1809, but that’s the reason many New Hampshirites (is that what you call them?) give for why they don’t want a seatbelt law.

How do we know the percentage of seatbelt users in each state? Because there are people watching you drive. Creepy? It’s not as bad as it sounds. The Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC) conducts annual seatbelt observations using trained observers to watch for seatbelt use at pre-identified locations around the state. If you want all the details about this spying (it’s not really spying) you can read the full report at the WTSC website.

March 10, 2019July 18, 2024

Too Much Green on St. Patrick’s Day

Q: Do you get drunker if you drink green beer?

A: Okay, I made that question up. We all know that green beer doesn’t get you drunker than regular beer. Or does it? We’re approaching St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday that, in terms of alcohol consumption, has certainly strayed from its heritage. Depending on whose survey you believe, St. Patrick’s Day is either the second or fourth biggest drinking day of the year in America. Quite a claim for a day that was originally celebrated by going to mass and honoring Saint Patrick as the founder of Christianity in Ireland in the fifth century.

But let’s get back to the green beer (one of many non-Irish things we see on March 17^th) and what it has to do with traffic safety. Nationwide, on St. Patrick’s Day, 38 percent of drivers killed in crashes had a blood alcohol limit higher than .08, and three quarters of those were at least double that. When we focus on post-party hours (from midnight to six am) nearly 69 percent of crash fatalities involve an impaired driver. Green beer has the same alcohol content as it’s amber relatives (green beer is just a light-colored beer that’s been dyed green) but if the goal of your St. Patrick’s Day celebration is to drink more than you usually do, then yes, green beer will get you drunker.

December 16, 2018July 18, 2024

DUI – It’s Not Just Booze Anymore

What kind of behavior do you visualize when you hear the terms ‘impaired driving’ or DUI? If your mind translated the word ‘impaired’ to the word ‘drunk’ or DUI turned into ‘driving under the influence of alcohol’ that would be understandable, but no longer entirely accurate. Impaired driving is changing, or more accurately, has already changed in Washington.

Impaired driving is the leading contributing factor in Washington fatal crashes, and has been for many years, but the dominant form of impairment is no longer just alcohol. Of the 565 traffic fatalities in Washington in 2017,266 involved an impaired driver. Of those 266 drivers, 181 of them had been drinking alcohol and 200 of them were impaired by drugs. That adds up to a lot more than 266, and that overlap is where we encounter poly-drug impairment;using two or more impairing substances at the same time. You can probably guess the most frequently combined substances: alcohol and cannabis. By 2016 poly-drug drivers involved in fatal crashes were more than twice the number of alcohol-only drivers and more than five times the number of cannabis-only drivers.