Top Reasons for Drunk Driving Stops

Last year, LegalMatch.com had thousands of clients seek Drunk Driving defense attorneys. Below are the top reasons these people said they were pulled over:

• Weaving / reckless driving: 24%
• Speeding: 20%
• Accident: 19%
• No reason given: 10%
• I don’t remember: 10%
• Vehicle non-compliance (expired registration tags, no headlights, etc.): 9%
• Sobriety check point / roadblock: 4%

The vast majority of stops were for weaving or reckless driving, generally considered the most obvious indicator of a drunk driver, but it doesn’t have to be alcohol related. Speeding, for instance, happens all the time and does not indicate drunkenness. Not having current registration tags certainly is not evidence of being drunk. Accidents are more likely with intoxicated drivers, but happen regardless of whether a driver is inebriated.

Is it unfair that people are pulled over for reasons unrelated to their crime? Maybe, but the issue of the “pre-textual stop” is well settled: police officers can pull you over for whatever they want, and arrest you for whatever they happen to lawfully find while you are stopped. (Keyword here is lawfully). Years ago in the case of Whren v. United States, the Supreme Court unambiguously stated that a pre-textual stop was constitutional. 

The multitude of vehicular codes makes it impossible to conform to all of them at any given time. If an officer’s ulterior motives in pulling you over are irrelevant, rules of the road become an easy target of police officer abuse. Our highways are essentially a giant magnifying glass, under which you have very little privacy.

I suspect, however, that not dying while you are driving outweighs your need for privacy in your car. For that reason I doubt many of us are shedding any tears over the plight of drunk drivers. I also doubt any of us would have much resistance to the honest enforcement of vehicle laws that are meant to make us all safer.

In the end, if an officer’s intent could be taken into account at a DUI motion to suppress, you would just hear a lot more lying going on in court rooms. “Well I just wanted to give him a speeding ticket, and imagine my surprise when I smelled the odor of marijuana!” Even though it may seem unfair to allow pre-textual stops, in reality limiting them may be impossible.