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View Full Version : Can a DUI be beat by drinking after a crash?



Antix
08-09-2014, 05:32 PM
Obviously I don't condone drink driving but has anyone ever tried to sneak a way out of getting done for DUI? I have heard of people challenging the traffic stop as they need 'reasonable grounds' to warrant pulling a car over such as breaking the law and they have been let go..

I Found this to be an interesting read.. http://www.autoblog.com/2014/09/07/dui-drinking-after-crash-florida-report/

Years ago I was watching one of the endless streams of legal dramas flashing across my television. The story revolved around a man who had been drinking and then got into an accident. He immediately called his lawyer, who asked him if he had a bottle in the trunk, then advised him to immediately start drinking from it. By the time the police arrived on the scene, it would be impossible (or at least difficult) to ascertain whether he was already drunk when he was driving or whether he had, as he was claiming, just taken a drink to calm his nerves after the accident. I don't remember what show it was, but I'd better dollars to donuts Tracy Garon saw the same episode.

59-year-old Garon was driving his '73 Rolls-Royce (a Phantom VI or Silver Shadow from the looks of things) through Pinellas Park, FL (don't pretend that you didn't expect it was Florida...), when he ran a red light, struck a Mercury Grand Marquis and killed its 81-year-old driver. While police were investigating the scene, Garon walked into a nearby convenience store, bought a 24-ounce can of Miller Lite and started drinking. When the officer saw him with the beer, he tried to confiscate it as evidence, but Garon spilled it out instead. The logic, Garon reasoned, was that – like the case in that legal drama – the police wouldn't be able to tell if he was drunk already or if the beer he drank after exiting the car put him over the top.

The police had a different idea, though. They tested his blood alcohol level once every hour, recording 0.25, 0.23 and 0.23 – all about three times the legal limit. If it had been the beer that had put him over the top, his blood alcohol level would have spiked and then returned to normal. The consistency of the readings indicated that he had been drinking heavily over an extended period of time and not, as he claimed, drank a small glass of wine and taken a swig of light beer. The findings were apparently enough for police and prosecutors to continue pressing the case. Garon pled guilty to DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide and was sentenced this past June to 17 years in prison.

In a similar case (represented by the same Clearwater lawyer, no less) another driver in Florida was returning home from a Christmas party in St. Petersburg when she was pulled over near her home, into which she fled and started drinking before the second unit with the breathalyzer kit could arrive. She later emerged from her home in her pajamas, having ingested alcohol inside and refused the breathalyzer. She was arrested and negotiated a plea bargain that reduced her DUI to reckless driving.
News Source: Tampa Bay Times

Autopilot
08-09-2014, 05:41 PM
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/8a/8a5b7219b149251c1e9193b8e806bdcfbba6d4e6bdee15406f ee8f33d50590ac.jpg

pingpingpingpings who drink and drive deserve every punishment that comes their way, especially if they have a crash or injure someone.

ossie_21
08-09-2014, 05:43 PM
Some muppet over east drank a bottle of perfume to try and mask his breath last week. Blew nearly 6 times over the limit & got taken to the hospital before the police station, but yeah it all went well apart from that.

Brett_J
08-09-2014, 05:43 PM
Heard a guy crash out the front of a mates house one night, first thing he did was run inside the neighbours house, who he knew, started necking beers, his mum and dad rolled up and took the empties out of his car, while cursing him for doing it "again".
Cops took statements and went to breatho him, he told them he'd had a few beers to calm down, had a pile of witnesses to say he did. Cops didn't bother checking him, told us they couldn't prove shit.
Nailed him for reckless though and hoon lawed his car as there was burnout marks right up until impact.

Got stuck paying off a written off car that wasn't insured as well, or his parents did, probably why they shut up shop, as they owned a mag wheel business in Morley that sold single used and new mags as well as sets ;)

HANS YOLO
08-09-2014, 06:35 PM
OP a cop?

XF Falcon
08-09-2014, 06:59 PM
Heard a guy crash out the front of a mates house one night, first thing he did was run inside the neighbours house, who he knew, started necking beers, his mum and dad rolled up and took the empties out of his car, while cursing him for doing it "again".
Cops took statements and went to breatho him, he told them he'd had a few beers to calm down, had a pile of witnesses to say he did. Cops didn't bother checking him, told us they couldn't prove shit.
Nailed him for reckless though and hoon lawed his car as there was burnout marks right up until impact.

Got stuck paying off a written off car that wasn't insured as well, or his parents did, probably why they shut up shop, as they owned a mag wheel business in Morley that sold single used and new mags as well as sets ;)

Wasn't that Mr Mag shop in morley was it?

Brett_J
08-09-2014, 07:01 PM
Wasn't that Mr Mag shop in morley was it?

How did you ever come to that conclusion.......

kyle_340
08-09-2014, 07:30 PM
Some muppet over east drank a bottle of perfume to try and mask his breath last week. Blew nearly 6 times over the limit & got taken to the hospital before the police station, but yeah it all went well apart from that.

lol....my neighbour did that.

TJ
08-09-2014, 08:03 PM
Was an episode of Boston Legal

apg39
08-09-2014, 08:38 PM
Because you should always believe what TV shows teach us.

Torquen
08-09-2014, 08:46 PM
Boston Legal is brilliant!

mARC
08-09-2014, 09:09 PM
Boston Legal is brilliant!

Original cast series was the best, pity they kept changing them out every series.

Charger
08-09-2014, 09:47 PM
Don't drink and drive and you have nothing to worry about.

Riggs
09-09-2014, 07:56 AM
Denny Crane.

Demonvia
09-09-2014, 08:07 AM
Tried to ask this same (hypercritical) question a few months ago on that Japanese WA car community facebook group.

Ended up getting flamed by self righteous kents thinking I was wanting to know for myslelf lol, sometimes I wonder when logic and reason died.

S133LTR
09-09-2014, 08:55 AM
sometimes I wonder when logic and reason died.

I think it was about the same time ppl started talking about drinking after an accident to avoid DUI.

DISTRBD
09-09-2014, 09:02 AM
I find running from the law helps to avoid a DUI charge . I have a mate that has got away with many a crash while drink driving but he has also been caught a lot , keeps getting his licence back and doing it all over again BUT the bit I don't get is he wont drive while suspended lol