On Dec. 18, it was reported that a 51-year-old New York man was taken into police custody after he was suspected of driving under the influence. According to the report, a police officer conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle after he made a left turn without signaling.
New Yorkers who are football fans might have heard that Michael Floyd, a wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals, was charged with a DUI a few hours after his team lost its game to the Miami Dolphins. The incident occurred on Dec. 12 around 2:48 a.m. in Scottsdale, Arizona.
In New York and many other states, a DUI is typically a misdemeanor charge. However, there are circumstances that could upgrade the charge to a felony. For instance, those with a blood alcohol content of higher than .16 percent may be considered to have an elevated BAC, which may result in harsher punishment. A driver may also face a felony DUI charge if he or she causes bodily harm.
A New York woman was handed several criminal charges after she was involved in a one-car accident in Canandaigua on Nov. 15. Police say that the 22-year-old woman crashed her car in a parking lot on Lakeshore Drive at about 11:10 p.m. After police were called to the scene of the accident, they found the woman inside of her vehicle and allegedly determined that she was under the influence of alcohol.
Despite a limited medical marijuana program in New York, neither that state nor any other state in the country has an established way to measure driver impairment resulting from marijuana use that has a solid scientific basis. While there are ways to test for THC levels, experts believe that this does not work as an indicator in the same way measuring blood alcohol content does. THC affects people in different ways, and people may have different levels of impairment at higher or lower levels of THC.
A 35-year-old resident of Lowville has been sentenced for charges related to driving a tractor through a town while intoxicated. The Upstate New York man received a prison term of 1 1/3 to 4 years. After he is released, he must serve five years of probation. He was also assessed $750 in court-related costs and a $1,000 fine. His driver’s license has also been revoked for a term of one year.
The state of New York has an ignition interlock device requirement for people who are convicted of driving while intoxicated. While attached to a vehicle’s ignition system, an ignition interlock device provides an interface that can measure the driver’s blood alcohol content. A car that is fitted with an ignition interlock device will only start if the driver can provide a breath sample that proves that there has not been any alcohol consumed.
When groups of people go out for drinks in New York, one person in the group may volunteer to be the designated driver. If abstaining from alcohol is difficult, a designated driver could slip up and drive drunk. Now, a startup company has invented a product that can easily test a person’s alcohol consumption to make sure that they are OK to drive.
The first practical roadside test with the capability to identify motorists who may be driving under the influence of marijuana is in the works, and it could potentially impact drivers in New York and elsewhere across the country soon. Researchers at Stanford University are combining magnetic nanotechnology with a time-tested biochemical technique in order to develop a device that could measure a driver’s marijuana intoxication during a traffic stop as effectively as a Breathalyzer might measure alcohol intoxication in the field.
New York parents may be interested to learn that a study examining underage drinking found that teenagers and young adults who came from households with clear rules about alcohol usage were less likely to drink. The study surveyed more than 1,100 teenagers and young adults and found that about 58 percent of households had rules about alcohol usage.