NEWS: December 18, 2009

How accurate is the testing of Breath and Blood in DUI cases? We know and hear a lot about the “margin of error” in the testing methods used to determine one’s blood or breath alcohol level. According to most credible forensic toxicologists, the margin of error for blood testing (drawing blood) is up to 10%. The breath testing of a person increases the margin of error to 20%.

There are a number of different Blood Alcohol Calculators that can be found to help determine what your BAC would be if you enter in a number of factors. Number of drinks or ounces of alcoholic drink, over how many hours, your weight, and alcohol level of the drinks, can give you a rough estimate of your BAC. These BAC Calculators don’t factor in many other variables that can effect absorption and elimination rates, thus only a rough estimate should ever be taken from the results.

One more problem in trying to calculate BAC is we often do not know the exact alcohol percentage of the drinks consumed. An example of this is that our government allows a wine maker to over or understate the alcohol level by 1%. This may not seem like a big deal, but it can be the difference between being over or under the legal limit. Here is an example, and this is only a rough calculation since we are using a BAC Calculator:

A 180 pound person drinks 20 ounces of 13% wine (4-5 half glasses) over a two hour period. Using one of many BAC Calculators the ethanol content of their blood would be 0.0783 percent. Same person and same amount of 14% wine, the BAC Calculator puts them at 0.0866 percent – OVER the legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Why does the government allow this 1% tolerance? One reason is to allow wine makers to create a label before it is time to bottle the product. Alcohol levels change over time in wine making and historically it has been very expensive to send off wine samples for alcohol percent testing. My question is, with computers today, how hard is it to make a last minute change of one number on a label?

New technology exists today that may eventually change this 1% tolerance.

Pictured here is an Oenofoss machine.

Alcohol Calculator

It can measure up to seven parameters in wine, including ethanol level. Apparently all you need is one drop of wine and you can almost instantly get a result. It appears the main reason most wine makers do not have this machine on site is the cost. I’m told you can have one for around $30,000. Just like big screen TV’s the price will eventually come down and all wine makers will have similar machines.

San Mateo dui lawyer

NEWS:  November 19, 2009

CHP DUI enforcement in Oakland and San Francisco has recently increased on the Bay Bridge.  The newly installed “S-Curve,” or as I heard a radio host this morning refer to it as “Mess-Curve,” has resulted in an increase of CHP enforcement.  The new section of the San Francisco to Oakland connection is scheduled to be in place for the next four years.

To slow cars down, CHP has lowered the speed limit and increased the number of officers patrolling this section of the Bay Bridge.  The result has been a huge increase in tickets for Vehicle Code violations, including DUI arrests.

According to a CHP officer I spoke with recently at a San Francisco DMV hearing last week, although they are not supposed to comment on DUI arrests, he indicated that the number of San Francisco and Oakland Drunk Driving Arrests has increased since the placement of the extra CHP patrol cars.

Oakland DUI Lawyer

NEWS: October 27, 2009

What happens when you go to court in San Mateo County on a DUI charge?

This depends on they type of charge.  The most serious charges for DUI are felonies, punishable by years in State Prison.

Most DUI cases involve misdemeanor first offense arrests.  You should get a DUI lawyer to represent you in court. Hiring a DUI lawyer usually means you will not have to appear in court in San Mateo County for the first court date.   In most cases that lawyer can enter a not guilty plea and set a new court date a month or so later.

If your case involves a high blood or breath alcohol level, an injury and or accident, or prior DUI convictions, you and your lawyer need to plan ahead.  In these cases you usually end up on San Mateo County supervised pre-trial release program.  Basically you are put on a probation without even being convicted, to avoid having to stay out of jail while your DUI case is pending.

What does this mean?  It means you will be tested for alcohol, and possibly drugs, and have to report in periodically to the San Mateo County probation office for testing.

If you are going to court for the first time on a 3rd or 4th DUI in San Mateo County, you will probably need to take extra steps to stay our of jail and avoid having to come up with a huge bail.   A good DUI Lawyer will probably advise clients to take some or all of the following steps help avoid your being taken into custody at the first court date:

1. Attend as many AA meetings as you can between date of arrest and court date.  I’m talking every      day if possible.  Get proof of attendance and bring it to court.

2. Start individual counseling and bring a letter to court from your therapist.

3. Self enroll with a company like LCA to have a SCRAM alcohol detection bracelet attached to               your ankle for alcohol monitoring.  Make sure to have a letter for the court from the SCRAM                   company that says violations will be reported to the San Mateo County Superior Court.

4. Be on time to court, dress nice, and do not come in with alcohol on your breath.

San Mateo County DUI Lawyer

NEWS: October 27, 2009

The question that I get asked over and over by those who know I’m a DUI lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area is how much alcohol can you drink, and still legally drive home?

This is a good time of the year to remind everyone of those answers.

The holidays bring on increased CHP and local police DUI enforcement.  The “avoid the DUI” drunk driving task forces are looking for all possible DUI arrests.

Drinking and driving is not illegal.  What is against the law is not being able to drive with the care and caution of a sober person, and being at or over the .08% alcohol limit.

We all absorb alcohol at different rates and eliminate or burn off at different rates.   If you go by thinking you burn off a beer or glass of wine each hour, you are asking for trouble.  The average person burns off less than one drink an hour.  Some burn off as little as a half drink per hour.

When describing a drink, we’re talking about one drink equalling approximately a 4-5 oz glass of wine, a 12 oz glass of a 5% beer, or a 1.5 oz shot of 80-proof liquor.

You can use the charts on my website to see what your alcohol level will be after X number of drinks over any period of time.  However, the best advice you can follow is don’t push the limits.

How accurate are the limits?

The breath machines are not always accurate.  There is a 20 percent margin of error on the breath machines the cops use to try and arrest and convict you for DUI.

If you are still absorbing alcohol, and I’ll save the science of alcohol absorption for a future post, blowing into a breath machine can result in a higher result than your actual level.

On an empty stomach you will absorb almost all of the alcohol quicker than if you have food in your stomach.  It can take an hour or two or even more for most of the alcohol to absorb on a full stomach.  ”Slower in” means “slower out”.

Bay Area DUI Lawyer

Avoid DUI’s in the Bay Area this holiday season.  Be smart, be safe, and remember that no cab ride home is ever too expensive when compared to the cost of a DUI in California.

Here are some interesting highlights from the 2009 DMV Annual Report

Alcohol-involved traffic fatalities decreased by 6.8% in 2007, for the first time after eight years of a continuous rising trend.

Drug-involved fatalities declined for the second consecutive year (by 12.8% in 2007), but still reflect an increase of almost 200% in the past decade, from 253 in 1997 t749 in 2007

The number of persons injured in alcohol-involved crashes decreased slightly by 1.0% in 2007, following a slight increase of 0.9% in 2006.
DUI arrests increased by 3.4% in 2007, following an increase of 9.4% in 2006, and a decrease of 0.4% in 2005.

The DUI arrest rate rose by 1.6% in 2007, yet still represents a 7.5% reduction from the arrest rate in 1997.

15.5% of all 2006 DUI arrests were associated with a reported traffic crash, compared t15.8% in 2005. 6.3% of 2006 DUI arrests were associated with crashes involving injuries or fatalities, slightly lower than 6.6% in 2005.

Among 2007 DUI arrestees, Hispanics (45.9%) again constituted the largest racial/ethnic group, as they have each year since 1992 (with the exception of 1999). Hispanics continued tbe arrested at a rate substantially higher than their estimated percentage of California’s adult population (35.8% in 2007).

The median (midpoint) age of an arrested DUI offender in 2007 was 30 years. Less than 1% of arrested DUI offenders were juveniles (under age 18).

Among convicted DUI offenders arrested in 2006, 73.5% were first offenders and 26.5% were repeat offenders (one or more prior convictions within the previous ten years). The proportion of repeat offenders has decreased considerably since 1989, when it stood at 37%.

The median blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of a convicted DUI offender, as reported by law enforcement on Administrative Per Se (APS) forms, was 0.15% in 2006, same as last year, yet almost double the California illegal per se BAC limit of 0.08% .

9.4% of 2006 DUI arrest cases did not show any corresponding conviction on DMV records, which is a decrease from 10.3% in 2005.

Source: www.ots.ca.gov

NEWS: October 1, 2009

The San Francisco Bay Area DUI law office of Aaron Bortel is NOW available to handle all DUI and DWI in San Mateo, Sonoma, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties.

If you’ve been arrested in any of these bay area counties, top lawyer help is available, with a free case evaluation.

3 Tips for people arrested for a DUI in the Bay Area.

1. Remain calm during the stop.
2. Keep hands on the steering wheel as the officer approaches your car.
3. If asked to perform any type of roadside sobriety tests, politely refuse, as it is within your rights to refuse.
4. Contact the DUI lawyers at the Bortel Law Office as soon as possible.

San Francisco DUI Lawyer

In our best year, 1983, 1.9 million drivers were arrested for driving while impaired (DWI) in the United States. This number represented approximately 1 percent of the Nation’s total licensed drivers.

This was a significant increase over the 197Os, when only about one-half of 1 percent of licensed drivers were arrested for DWI each year.

Still, it is not enough. Speaking a decade ago, Borkenstein (1975) noted that Roadside surveys of the occurrence of alcohol in the driving public have shown that when enforcement is at the current level of 2 arrests per officer per year, and with automobile density what it is in the average congested city today, there are about 2,000 violations for each arrest.

A “violation” is a trip from one point to another with a blood alcohol concentration of .lO percent or higher; thus, in a typical community of 1 million population, with 1,000 patrol officers making two arrests per man per year, there will be 2,ooO arrests and 4 million violations.

Since Borkenstein made that statement, the percentage of licensed drivers arrested for DUI has doubled and, therefore, the ratio of violations to arrests may now be down to 1,000 to one.

Indeed, two studies suggested that where intensive enforcement is applied, the violation-to-arrest ratio can be reduced to approximately 300 to one (Beitelet al. 1975; Hause et al. 1982).

These higher arrest rates, which are not typical of the enforcement level of the country as a whole, have been shown to produce small reductions in alcohol-related accidents (Voas and Hause 1987).

DWI arrests nationally rose significantly from 1979 to 1983; the proportion of highway fatalities that were alcohol-related dropped 10 to 15 percent from 1982 to 1986. The extent to which this increase in arrests contributed to the subsequent decrease in alcohol-related fatalities is difficult to determine.

The increase probably contributed as one element in a larger complex of factors that included citizen activist programs, alcohol legislation, and increased public interest in health and safety (Howland 1988).

Regardless, a doubling of the total number of arrests has had, at best, a modest effect on the alcohol-related casualty rate.

Luckily, deterrence of drunk driving is not determined by the absolute number of arrests but by the public’s perception of the probability of being arrested (Ross 1984). While it may be generally true that the more arrests made, the more the public will bedeterred, there is no precise relationship between the number of arrests and the extent of deterrence.

Aaron R. Bortel is a well-known and respected San Francisco DUI Lawyer, practicing throughout the Bay area. Mr. Bortel has dedicated his legal practice to the defense of persons accused of driving under the influence of alcohol and or drugs.

For a Free Consultation Call Toll Free at 1-888-373-8000

Source
Robert B. Voas, Ph.D.
Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERkf)
John H. Lacey, Ph.D.
The Universiy of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center

According to CHP, the number of arrests for DUI in the Bay Area from 6PM Wednesday, December 31 2008 to 6AM Thursday January 1, 2009 is double the number from the same period last year.  This year there were 84 Drunk Driving arrests in the San Francisco Bay Area, compared to 41 Drunk Driving arrests made over the same 12 hour period last year. 

As we enter the new year CHP and local police forces have been setting up sobriety checkpoints all over the Bay Area.  Most DUI arrests at checkpoints go unchallenged in Court.  This lack of challenge to these warrantless stops has resulted in officers going beyond what the courts have authorized them to do at checkpoints. 

 On two recent occasions I have challenged sobriety checkpoint arrests in San Francisco and won.  On both occasions the Court has agreed with me and granted the motions to suppress the evidence against my clients.   About two weeks ago the Court was outraged by the police conduct at at one of these checkpoints.  At least half the rules governing the checkpoint were not met and the 20-30 officers assigned to the checkpoint made only one DUI arrest all night (arresting my client).   After the court tossed that arrest, we have well over 100 police hours, much of it probably overtime, and no DUI convictions to show for it.  What did that cost the city and state?

 If you have been arrested at a Sobriety Checkpoint for Drunk Driving this holiday season, hire a DUI lawyer who has won one of these cases recently and assert your constitutional rights.  Another law office besides the Law Offices of Aaron Bortel that has had success with these illegal checkpoints is the Law Offices of Kapsack and Bair.