Question: After going to an Atlanta Falcons football game I went out with some friends from work and we went to some bars & clubs in Atlanta, Buckhead and in North Fulton County. My friends were drinking different types of rum, gin, vodka and tequila and some wine and craft beer. Three pretty drunk friends were in my car and I was driving. I was the designated driver. I swerved when I was looking for my iPhone because my GPS wasn’t working right and because I wanted to text to get directions. I got pulled over for failure to maintain lane. I think the cop smelled the booze on my friends. The cop made me do some field sobriety tests. I got arrested for
DUI But I refused to take the
breathalyzer test. Thing is, I only had one beer over the five hours we were out. I’d always heard that lawyers say never, ever to take the breathalyzer test. Was that a good move refusing the breath test?
Answer: It probably was not a good move in your case. If you just had one beer over five hours you were most likely nowhere near the .08 threshold for a per se DUI in Georgia. The test may have helped your case dramatically if your Intoxilyzer 5000 reading was low.
The advice to “never” take a breath test is sometimes wrong. Of course, if you engaged in the revelry with your friends, the breathalyzer test may have been incriminating and served as compelling evidence against you.
Since you mentioned that your friends were partaking in various libations, it’s interesting to note that alcohol volumes vary by type of beverage. Beers have alcohol contents of generally between 3%-10%; wines 8%-15%; and spirits 20%-70%.