I think it is incredibly irresponsible to charge someone with a "D"UI while they are sleeping in the back seat of their own car or something. This threat just causes people who are borderline drunk to instead risk driving home rather than being in a car as a sitting duck for several hours, practically begging a cop to come along and charge them. I myself have on rare occasion slept in my car for brief periods after a night out, and probably could have been charged for doing what I thought was the most responsible and safest thing.
I mean, what else was I supposed to do after taking the last subway train of the night back to the suburban station with the parking lot and my car alone? I suppose I could have tried sleeping under a tree and risk getting mugged I guess. Not a good alternative. Also not good when it is raining or very cold out.
Also, there has been more than one occasion where I have slept a non-alcohol related migraine off in my car. I was certainly impaired due to extreme sickness. And there have been many many times I have slept in my car because I was so fatigued I’d be as dangerous as someone drunk to continue driving. Should that be illegal too?
This is a terrible, terrible law! In my opinion, any police officer who enforces this sort of fake DUI has blood on their own hands.
For a long time in Ohio, people were getting arrested and convicted of DUI for being drunk while simply sitting in their car w/ keys in the ignition. So a few years ago Ohio passed a law called “Having physical control of vehicle while under the influence”:
Like a DUI, it is also a first-degree misdemeanor. If you are convicted of Physical Control, I believe the biggest difference is that no points are put on your license, so it should have little (if any) impact on your vehicle insurance.
Friend of mine in New Jersey was too drunk to drive, so he pulled over. It being a freezing cold night, he kept the keys in the ignition to keep the car warm.
During college a friend of mine was partying in his dorm with a group of people. There was some kind of conflict, and my friend decided to go out to his car to sleep rather than stay around and risk getting in a fight. He went to his car, got in the back seat, and went to sleep. A cop knocked on his window and woke him up. He was charged with and convicted of a DUI.
That’s because there was evidence that he was driving while under the influence before the cops arrested him. This is very different than simply sitting or sleeping in your car while drunk, having never turned over the engine. The latter is the ultimate Might Might Crime: the state says you are a criminal because you might start your car, and then you might drive and hurt someone. (I am not a fan of Might Crimes. And Might Might Crimes definitely cross the line, IMO.)
In Ireland, they charge you with being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle. So, even if you are making no attempt to drive it, their view is that you are committing a crime simply by being in the car.
In fairness to the Irish cops (the Garda) they are usually reasonable if it is plain that you are making no attempt to drive - for example, if you are asleep on the back seat, and the keys are not in the ignition.
However, I remember a case in the UK many years ago, where a man was charged with a similar offence. He was found drunk, on the back seat of his car, in a sleeping bag.
As I recall it, he proved that he was homeless at the time and the car was actually where he lived. In other words, he had gone home to bed after having some drinks.
His defence was accepted and he was not convicted of any crime.
I wonder how much of this is scare tactics. I remember an “assembly” in high school where they passed a closed box around the hall (i.e., “take this and pass it down the row” kind of thing) and then announced that if the box had contained drugs, then you would have been in trouble notwithstanding the fact that you had no idea. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t hold in criminal court, but then the public schools supposedly operate differently.
The logic is simple - yes it’s a “might” crime, but the police do not want to split hairs. If you are drunk, and in a vehicle, and have the means to start it, then there is the risk that you will wake up and start it and drive - possibly even with no memory of doing so the next morning. Some places, you do not even need the keys, IIRC.
It’s the same concept as the “opne liquor” charge. I Canada, if you have an open bottle of alcohol where it is accessible to the driver, the person(s) in possession of the liquor can be charged - or the driver if there is nobody specifically holding it. Society does not want to have to wait and catch you AFTER you go over the legal limit, does not want to debate if the the amount is sufficient to put you over the limit, or any nit-picking details; drink and car together is a no-no.
IIRC, there was a law in California that being found drunk in a vehicle with a drunk driver would earn the passenger a charge also. Back around 1980, IIRC, someone wrote to Dear Abby complaining about this because their husband had taken a taxi home, then gotten charged when the taxi driver was pulled over and found to be impaired. The theory is that any co-drunks(?) share in the bad decision to DUI, so bear equal responsibilty. As usual with the law, the devil is in the details.
A case many years ago was over a pair of guys parked. When the police approached, one was drinking a beer. The policeman asked the other guy - who had nothing in his hands - to pass him the bottle so he could see what was in it, then when the guy passed it to him, charged him with “open liquor” too. The judge threw that one out of court.
As for possession of drugs - the same logic applies. “I’m just holding this for a friend” doesn’t work very well, the court has heard that excuse too many times. Having 300 people testify that an authority figure told you to hold a sealed box in a public place might stand up in court as a defence, but in general if it’s your house or car and that’s where it’s found and nobody else is clutching it, you’d better hire a good lawyer.
I think that my biggest issue with the concept of charging someone sleeping it off in the car with a DUI is that it stands to reason that if you’re going to get charged anyway, then you might as well take the smaller risk and drive home. If you’re on the road and moving for 20 minutes that gives the police a much smaller chance at actually catching you than it does sleeping in your car for 4or 5 hours in the same spot so that they can come find you.
I totally understand the ideas behind why they do it, but there are perhaps some unintended consequences from having such a law.
With a little planning and forethought, you could have:
arranged a designated driver
called a taxi
called a sober friend/family member
left the bar earlier and caught the last bus
not have consumed alcohol when your only way to get home was your car
walked
None of the above would have resulted in you potentially becoming a danger to others on the road. Just plan ahead; when I’m thinking about going out, my first thought is “How will I get home?”
Surely a good lawyer could get you off a ‘DUI’ if you are sleeping one off in the back parking lot. The D of DUI stands for driving which you most certainly are not doing if you’re in the back seat sleeping. If a lawyer argued the case that way how would it be possible to convict?
No. I ran out of gas, so I was on foot. I admitted to driving my vehicle to the cops who questioned me about 30 minutes later. (Probably shouldn’t have done that. Oh well.) They charged me with DUI, and I ended up getting it reduced to Physical Control.
If I ever heard of someone actually getting a ticket or arrested for this ( or sleeping it off while parked outside the bar ) I’d agree that the cop should have used discretion. But I’ve never known anyone who got caught at the train station or outside the bar. They all started to drive home and then pulled over to sleep it off - far from any train station or bar or restaurant where they could have gotten drunk.
When I was a teen, I was a passenger in a DUI accident after which my parents punished me by making me attend a week of DUI classes. The instructor recited a list of (possibly apocryphal) situations where people had been charged with DUI simply for being in or near their vehicle. The most egregious one I can remember involved a cop leading a bar patron outside to retrieve his car registration— as soon as the guy unlocked the car door, he was arrested for DUI.
There were others, including drivers who were supposedly woken and arrested while attempting to sleep it off in the back seat.
Around my parts, the chances of the cops finding you asleep in a parked car would be exponentially less than the chances of having an accident on the way home if you were drunk.
As mentioned in my earlier post, in Canada the offence specifically includes care and control of a motor vehicle while impaired or “over 80”. Driving the vehicle is not a required element for that aspect of the offence. However, it normally only applies if the person is in the driver’s seat, and thus potentially in a position to put the vehicle in motion.