Danny Cevallos of cnn.com April 6, 2016 article about Soccer Star Abby Wamback’s DUI arrest raises an important shift in the psychology of DUI Legal Defense. There has been a strange shift in public perception of drinking and driving, and it is because of Uber. Most people think DUI enforcement is stupid. Its foundation is based upon a police officer with at best a 24-hour course, who has never met you and who has to determine if you are intoxicated just by looking at you. Official government tests of your breath or blood, also based upon dubious science, can not even be conducted until you are already under arrest for DUI and sometimes hours after you have been driving. DUI Alcohol Impairment is essentially a gray area. It is an arbitrary concept based upon the opinion of a police officer with no real medical or scientific training or a politically set legal limit which has decreased from 0.15 to .08 in a little less than 40 years as a result of political lobbying and not advancements in the scientific understanding of alcohol on the human body. In the old days when someone heard of a person getting a DUI, they thought how terrible it meant “there but for the grace of God go I.” Now when someone hears about a DUI, they say how irresponsible which means “why didn’t you just call an Uber.” This is an important issue for DUI lawyers who have to anticipate jurors that might convict simply because the person should have called an Uber. I can attest to being shocked by several juries lately which convicted my client when in the past I would all but guaranteed an acquittal. The math doesn’t lie. In 1993, there were approximately 90,000 DUI arrests. In 2015, that number was just under 25,500 DUI arrests in Georgia. This isn’t because of tougher DUI laws and more police on the street. It is because of Uber. Just wait, in five years self-driving cars will be commonplace and there will be no reason to drink and drive much less drive DUI.
-Author: George Creal