Category Archives: Driving While License Suspended/Revoked

DUI: Men vs. Women

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Image result for Drunk women and men

Great news article from the Bellingham Herald discusses the physiological differences in alcohol impairment levels experienced between men and women.

In Who Gets Arrested More for DUI: Men or Women?,  author Doug Dahl states that over the past couple decades, alcohol-impaired driving has steadily been decreasing, however, the reduction in impaired driving doesn’t apply to women. Dahl is the Target Zero Manager for the Whatcom County Traffic Safety Task Force.

Apparently, in a recent 10-year period, DUI arrests for men decreased by 7.5 percent while DUI arrests for women increased by 28.8 percent.

“According to the CDC, the average weight of an American man is 196 pounds, while the average American woman weighs 166 pounds,” said Dahl.  “Also, because of differences in enzymes, hormones and body fat percentages between men and women, women generally metabolize alcohol at a slower rate.” Simply put, says Dahl, women get drunk faster and stay drunk longer than men:

“To be clear, both of our imaginary people in this example shouldn’t drive. A BAC of .06 will cause impairment. It’s a big enough concern that legislators in some states, including Washington, have proposed reducing the legal limit to .05.”

Mr. Dahl further states that the level of impairment between a BAC of .06 and .09 is significant. According to a study of impaired driving crashes, a driver with a BAC of .06 is about 1.6 times more likely to cause a crash than a sober driver. For a driver with a BAC of .09, that jumps up to 3.5 times more likely. “Don’t judge your own impairment based on how someone else handles the same amount of alcohol, and always have a plan for a safe ride home before going out for drinks,” says Dahl.

Regardless of your gender, please contact my office if you, a friend or relative faces charges of DUI. These charges are serious, threaten careers and can significantly limit one’s driving privileges.

The Most Charged Crime

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Driven To Fail Report Cover

Apparently, the most commonly charged crime in Washington State – Driving While License Suspended in the Third Degree (DWLS III)- shouldn’t be a crime at all, the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union argues in a new report.

In “Driven to Fail: The High Cost of Washington’s Most Ineffective Crime – DWLS III” the report describes the costs of enforcing this law, explores how it burdens individuals and communities, and calls for policies that address the harm of driving with a suspended license without criminalizing it. According to the ACLU, taxpayers spend more than $40 million a year to prosecute cases of DWLS III.

“Not every social problem needs to be treated as a crime,” said Mark Cooke, the ACLU of Washington’s Campaign for Smart Justice Policy Director. “DWLS III enforcement costs taxpayers millions of dollars, yet does little to improve public safety. The crime is largely punishing people for being poor, not because they are scofflaws or dangerous drivers,” said Cooke.

Typically, a DWLS III charge comes about this way: A driver receives a ticket for a moving violation (such as speeding or rolling through a stop sign) and for various reasons does not follow through by paying the ticket or showing up in court to contest it. Hundreds of thousands of people in Washington have had their license suspended for not responding to a ticket for a moving violation. Those who continue to drive once their license is suspended may be arrested and charged with DWLS III.

The report estimates that Washington taxpayers have spent more than $1.3 billion enforcing this crime between 1994 and 2015. These costs stem from the filing of nearly 1.5 million DWLS III criminal charges, resulting in nearly 900,000 convictions. In 2015, there were nearly 40,000 DWLS III charges filed, costing taxpayers $42,199,270. The report also shows that the law is applied unequally across the state and disproportionately impacts people of color, the young, and the poor.

The report recommends that the crime of DWLS III should be taken off the books. Short of that, law enforcement, prosecutors and courts can exercise their inherent discretion and treat DWLS III as a civil offense and offer relicensing programs. Civil remedies and relicensing can be more effective and use fewer criminal justice resources. The data in the report also shows that some jurisdictions, such as the cities of Yakima and Seattle, have started to treat DWLS III as a non-criminal offense.

My opinion? It’s no mystery that DWLS III allows police to arrest people with suspended licenses. However, most don’t know that it allows police to search people’s vehicles after arrest.  Therefore, any contraband, guns or other illegal items found in people’s cars can be lawfully seized.

Additionally, the defendant will face unlawful possession charges for whatever contraband found during the search. In my opinion, this is the essence of an unlawful pretextual search. And for that reason, DWLS III should be a civil infraction which circumvents the need for arrest and searches. It should not be a crime.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.