Can Police Charge Me With DUI Even If They Did Not See Me Driving A Vehicle?

A common scenario is police officers will show up at an accident scene, saying you were behind the wheel, and making up circumstantial evidence to determine that you were the driver. They can also look at the position of the seat in proportion to your body size and check to see if the engine is still warm. They don’t have to see you driving to charge you with DUI. That is why you need to hire a lawyer to fight every bit of their case, including the driving element. A DUI typically has two elements that are needed for the prosecution to be able to convict you; one is driving and the other is either having above a 0.08 blood alcohol level or not driving with the care and caution of a sober person.

Can A Breathalyzer Reading Ever Be Wrong?

The Breathalyzer can measure a deep, long, alveolar air sample. They are trying to measure what is in your blood and the best way to do it is to see what is in your lungs. If you are not fully absorbed with alcohol, that number can be higher and it can be a false positive because there is more alcohol saturated in your lung area than in the extremities of your body. It’s not a good representation of what your true blood alcohol level is. You can have mouth alcohol or alcohol in the throat. At dinner, if you had rice and rice is stuck in the gaps in your teeth, you may have alcohol stuck in there as well.

There are many different ways that a Breathalyzer can read inaccurately. More often than not, however, the Breathalyzer is getting an accurate reading. Police are supposed to wait and observe you for 15 minutes before you blow into the machine to make sure that there is no mouth alcohol or contamination. Breath machines are machines and no machines are perfect. Errors happen all the time. Humans need to calibrate these machines and check them for accuracy. There are repair records that we can sometimes find to show that a machine has been taken out of service because it is not operating properly.

Often, the crime labs of the police departments have to change a simulator solution because it wears out and the machine starts reading higher or lower. There are all sorts of rules and regulations on that. The machines are not perfect and they are not always completely accurate.

For more information on DUI Charges When Not Driving A Vehicle, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (415) 523-7878 today.