Drunk driving is a severe offense under California law. You commit this offense when you operate a vehicle with a blood alcohol content that exceeds the legal limit or when your general conduct is impaired by alcohol or drug use. Since alcohol impairs a driver’s judgment, a drunk driver can potentially cause serious accidents and injuries to other road users.
Often, a DUI case will begin when a driver is topped by a traffic officer on suspicion of drunk driving. A driver’s conduct on the road may create a probable cause for the arrest. The officers will further assess the driver to find signs supporting probable cause for arrest.
Understanding the signs that a friend is too drunk is essential to ensuring their safety and helping them avoid an arrest for DUI. However, if you or a loved one faces an arrest and charges for drunk driving, you will require expert legal insight to fight the charges.
Some of the signs that your friend is too drunk to drive include:
Difficulty Creating a Structured Language
When alcohol or drug use causes impairment, a person’s speech may be affected. You can have a private conversation with your friends before allowing them to drive home after a night out. In this conversation, you can track how fast they speak. If they have difficulty structuring a sentence, they may be too intoxicated to drive.
People who cannot coordinate their speech may need help operating their vehicles. If traffic officers stop your friend in this state, they can notice the issue during their interaction. This could be used as a probable cause for an arrest under suspicion of drunk driving.
Your Friends BAC Exceeds the Legal Limit
A person's BAC is critical evidence in a DUI case. After a DUI stop, the traffic officers will administer a breathalyzer test and later confirm the results with a blood test after an arrest. An adult driver operating on a standard driver’s license will be arrested and charged with drunk driving if their BAC exceeds the legal limit.
The impact of drunk driving can take away your freedom and wreck your personal and professional life. If you are planning on having fun with friends, you can obtain a portable Breathalyzer device to check your alcohol level before you drive home. You can obtain a device from a pharmacy and carry it with you.
If your friend has had too much to drink, you can ask them to breathe into the device. If their BAC is 0.08% or more, you should not allow them to drive. When using the Breathalyzer device, you must understand that different factors can affect the accuracy of the results. This could include its calibration and the state of your friend’s alcohol metabolism.
Therefore, they should not risk driving if their BAC is slightly below the limit. This is because when an officer stops their vehicle and administers the test, the BAC could have risen above 0.08%, resulting in an arrest.
Witnessing their Drinking
There is always that one friend who tends to overdo everything in every group. You can protect your friend from the impact of drunk driving by keeping tabs on the number of drinks they take. Although a person’s body weight and metabolism can affect how alcohol is absorbed in their bodies, it is easy to tell when someone has had too much.
Sometimes, a driver will be arrested for drunk driving even when there are no apparent signs of intoxication. This occurs when the person’s blood alcohol content exceeds the legal limit. Therefore, if you have witnessed your friend taking an amount of alcohol that could cause their BAC to exceed the legal limit set under California DUI laws, you can ensure that they get home safely without driving.
They Cannot Pass a Field Sobriety Test
A person’s general conduct is a significant determinant of intoxication. Often, law enforcement officers use the field sobriety test to determine whether a driver’s conduct is impaired by alcohol. Since no specialized techniques are required to administer the test, you can take your friend through some tests to determine their level of impairment.
Failing the tests means there is an increased risk of an arrest when the police administer them again at a DUI stop. Standard tests you can use to gauge your friend's drunkenness include:
- The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus. This test involves moving your finger or another object at least twelve inches from your friend's face and allowing them to track it. Involuntary jerks and eye movements may indicate intoxication and unfitness to drive.
- Walk-the-line test. You can administer this test by finding a flat surface and asking your friend to walk on an imaginary straight line. In this test, you can check their ability to coordinate and balance their body.
- One leg stand. Before you let your friend drive home after a night of fun and drinking, you can ask them to try to balance while standing on one leg. Failure to balance may indicate that they are too drunk to drive home.
Physical Limitation
Watching your friend’s physical abilities after they have been drinking is an easy way to determine whether they are too drunk to operate a motor vehicle safely. You can do this by gauging their ability to sit still and balance their body weight. Alcohol use affects not only the cognitive but also the physical abilities of an individual.
From the moment you take an alcoholic drink, the absorption into your bloodstream begins. This causes your body to either relax or react spontaneously to situations. For most individuals, alcohol use will slow down a person’s reaction time and perception, which increases the risk of getting into a collision.
If your friend looks physically incapacitated after you have been out drinking, you should not let them drive home.
Short Term Memory Loss
Alcohol use causes a significant impact on your brain, which could result in short-term memory loss. You can notice that a friend has short-term memory loss when they have trouble remembering information relayed to them a while ago.
You can test your friend’s sobriety by conversing with them and then asking them about what you said. If they have difficulties remembering the details, it may be a sign that they are too drunk and should not be left alone to drive.
Slurred Speech
Slurred speech means that someone has difficulties putting thoughts into a sentence together. A change in tone or pattern of speaking can also manifest this. Often, when alcohol is absorbed in the blood, the effects on the mind can also affect speech.
Therefore, if your friend has a pattern of speaking that is different from their usual voice, they may have had too much to drink. In the event a law enforcement officer stops the friend’s vehicle, they may notice the stutter in their voice during minor interactions and suspect them of drunk driving.
Extreme Fatigue
While a few drinks can pump up your energy, excessive alcohol intake can cause extreme fatigue. Alcohol is a depressant that affects your brain function. When drivers are tired, they often have poor judgment, which can be detrimental. If your friend appears too tired or starts to fall asleep even before you leave the club, you should not allow them to drive.
This is because they could fall asleep behind the wheel and cause a catastrophic accident. Alternatively, their driving conduct could be significantly impaired, which may cause the traffic officers to stop and even begin an investigation for drunk driving.
Nausea and Vomiting
As a person’s body absorbs alcohol in high amounts, it can reject anything up to a certain point. Consuming too much alcohol can cause nausea and vomiting. If your friend is throwing up after a night out, their body may have had too much alcohol. Most alcoholic drinks have low water levels, which leaves you dehydrated. Therefore, you should pay close attention to your friend for signs of nausea and vomiting.
Significant Changes in Behavior
Since alcohol or drug use impacts a person’s brain, different people have varying reactions to excessive alcohol use. Some people may become violent or act out of character. Other people relax and become overly light-hearted after alcohol consumption. If you observe a significant change in a friend’s emotional or physical behavior, it may help you tell whether they are in the right state to operate a motor vehicle safely.
Inability to Operate Technology
Driving safely requires your mind and physical abilities to be on point. A person’s ability to make the right decisions and operate safely is diminished with every drink they take. Another way to check your friend’s ability to drive safely is how well they can operate technology.
You can do this by checking how they navigate essential apps on the phone. Another good thing about technology is that some apps can test people’s cognitive abilities and help them know whether they are too drunk.
Alcohol Smell
If you have not witnessed the amount of alcohol that your friend has consumed, the smell of alcohol from their mouth could be an indication that they may be too drunk to drive home. When law enforcement officers stop a vehicle for suspected drunk driving, the stench of alcohol from the driver’s breath can create probable cause to continue the DUI investigations.
Blurred Vision
A sharp vision is critical for any driver. This helps identify obstacles and vehicles on the road and avoid collisions. Unfortunately, alcohol affects people in different ways and can impact a person’s ability to see correctly. An auto accident is likely to occur when a person has blurry vision.
You can identify that your friend has blurry vision if they run into stationary objects while walking and do not make eye contact with you when speaking. You can perform a simple test by asking them to read something or pass objects in front of their face and asking them to identify the color and number of items.
Law enforcement officers at traffic stops and DUI checkpoints are keen on your vision when your vehicle is stopped. Therefore, if a person behaves like they can see clearly, the likelihood of a drunk driving rest may be inevitable.
Swerving
Sometimes, you do not notice a friend is too intoxicated after a night out until they are already driving. Especially when the specific friend does not drink excessively, you could get into the car and allow them to drive you home without checking their state. However, their driving conduct can tell you their level of intoxication.
If, while driving, your friend does not stick to one lane or makes dangerous lane changes. They may have poor judgment after drinking too much alcohol. Sometimes, this can occur if you leave a club or entertainment joint immediately after drinking the alcohol. As the body metabolizes the alcohol, the impairment is more noticeable.
If you notice this driving conduct, your friend may be too drunk to operate safely. Therefore, you can ask them to pull over for another person to drive or call a rideshare to ensure your safety and avoid a DUI arrest.
Find a Competent DUI Defense Attorney Near Me
You can be arrested and charged with drunk driving when you operate a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A conviction for drunk driving in California attracts severe legal and collateral consequences.
When a law enforcement officer stops your vehicle on suspicion of drunk driving, there are signs that they will look for to create a probable cause for your arrest. These could include slurred speech, an unsteady gait, and an alcohol stench in their breath. If you have had some alcoholic drinks with your friends, you need to understand the signs of intoxication.
This helps ensure that your friend is not a risk to the safety of others and that they do not risk arrest or prosecution for DUI. If you or your friend faces a DUI arrest in Los Angeles, CA, you will benefit from the legal guidance we offer at Jonathan Franklin DUI Attorney. Call us at 323-464-6700 today to discuss your case details.
