Well, there’s this article: Single Glass of Wine Immerses D.C. Driver in Legal Battle
This is from several years ago, but I remember it making the local news.
The woman was pulled over after leaving a restaurant and forgetting to turn her lights on and blew a .03. She was arrested and charged with DUI. Legal limit at the time was .08.
From the article:
In the District, a driver can be arrested with as little as .01 blood-alcohol content.
As D.C. police officer Dennis Fair, who arrested Bolton on May 15, put it in an interview recently: “If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in D.C. We have zero tolerance. . . . Anything above .01, we can arrest.”
Fair acknowledged that many people aren’t aware of the District’s policy. “But it is our law,” he said. “If you don’t know about it, then you’re a victim of your own ignorance.”
From some of the numbers given in the article, it looks like DC police may average a DUI arrest per day with BAC under the limit (321 one year; 409 another). There was a huge outcry about this at the time and, IIRC, they’ve changed the policy. Restaurant owners, for example, were not happy with the idea of a glass of wine with dinner causing their customers to get locked up.
I’m not interested in digging into how many were actually convicted, but I would
imagine someone has been (730 arrests in two years).
In this case (argue the pros and cons of her behavior as you like):
On Aug. 22, after four court appearances, prosecutors dropped the charge. But she spent all of September battling the DMV to keep her driving privileges from being suspended for three months.
And Karl Gauss must not be familiar with Doctor Johnny Fever from WKRP:)