Washington DUI law, like that of numerous additional states, has gone through a lot of different iterations over the years. At one moment in time driving drunk in Seattle, for instance, was looked over as a unimportant crime. If you were too impaired to drive you were simply given a ride back home by the police, told to call a person, or forced to hike home. Over time, as specific groups started to organize around stopping DUIs (students against intoxicated driving, mothers against intoxicated driving, etc.) they started to fight for stronger rules in opposition to impaired driving.
As those provisions were approved, the penalties of a inebriated driving guilty verdict increased in comparison to the amount of discretion afforded cops and prosecutors decreased. The laws have not gone so far as to be officially recognized as an “exception” to the Constitution (the implied consent to a breath test, which in actuality is a encroachment of your fifth amendment entitlement to not testify against yourself). Plus, as driving under the influence seizures have become a more high profile offense to report on, police, it seems, have become still more vigilant in arresting people for drunk driving, even going so far as to stop them for no legitimate cause to check them for driving under the influence (I realize, it goes against common sense to stop a person to check them for driving under the influence when they display no noticeable signs of drunk driving - as your Seattle DUI attorney why that is, perhaps they’ll produce an response).
They’ve even gone so far as to stop individuals for touching the white lane line differentiating lanes one point. For example, let’s suppose you are driving along I-5 in Seattle, take an exit onto one of the roads, and in so doing you contact or cross the white line marking the line of traffic for only one second. I know you all have done it - what about when taking a fairly sudden bend and you cut it off just a bit to make the turn simpler? Well, what if, founded on this lone deed alone, a police pulled you over to investigate you for a Seattle drunk driving?
Well, thankfully, the Washington State Supreme Court has decided that the law, which says that someone is to remain in their lane “as reasonably as practicable” means that from time to time you may possibly go outside of the lane. It is only if going outside of the traffic lane creates a safety risk that a solitary violation warrants a traffic stop.
This is exactly the reason why if you are stopped and then arrested for drunk driving in Washington, whether it be Seattle, Kirkland, Kent, Bellevue, Everett, or anywhere else in between, that you hire a high-quality Seattle driving under the influence lawyer and aim to memorize exactly what happened that caused the stop in addition to what happened following. It can be the difference between dismissal of your DUI case and conviction.