So for the first time in my life, I was stopped at a sobriety checkpoint tonight. This was at about 11:30 PM. The police officer asked me if I’d been drinking, I said “no” without thinking, and he sent me on my way.
As I drove away, I remembered that I had had one beer at around 6:00 pm and another at around 8:15. As you might guess, I was 100% sober by the time I got in my car several hours later. Still, it makes me wonder what the best thing to say is in that sort of situation.
Any thoughts?
The first time I got breath tested I’d been out to a Christmas function. I’d only had 3 drinks between say noon and 6pm and hadn’t had one for a couple of hours. I told the cop that I’d had a couple of wines with lunch and one drink after lunch and asked how it would show on the breathalyser. He said it only had 2 results - pass and fail - and if I failed it was off to the station for the blood test that would actually convict me. He said he couldn’t tell if I’d had no drinks or just not enough to be iver the limit. As it was I passed but don’t know by how much.
I took a class in JC taught by an ex LAPD officer.
He was very explicit. If asked by a cop whether or not you had been drinking, you always answer NO.
Just don’t say “two beers”. The check may be in the mail, Junior may just be in the bathroom combing his hair, and you may have only had two beers, but any of these answers tend to set off alarm bells.
It’s not like there is a bigger conviction for lying, too.
Excellent advice. I had had one biggish glass of wine before going through a checkpoint. Turned out I right on the limit. If I hadn’t confessed I doubt they would have breathalysed me.
[hijack] to they SERIOUSLY do those “touch your noce, walk 20 paces in a straight line” kinda tests in the US? I get all my working knowledge of drunk tests from Bad Boys 
I (anecdotally) understand that they do the alphabet test, but it’s mostly to see if you can do it without singing.
First off two beers in almost six hours isn’t drinking. As in “have you been drinking?” meaning sit down and have a few in a short time. Your body should metabolize a beer in an hour and you had only two in 5-6 hrs. So, in all honesty, I’d say NO I have NOT been drinking.
If asked, “Have you had anything to drink.” A little more problematic. Same principle applies though. I’d say no.
Then again, if YOU felt like you had been drinking. What in the Hell were you doing driving. :mad:
Doesn’t everyone recite the alphabet to the tune, sober or not?
I don’t know about everybody, but I know I do.
Cop once pissed me off by asking me, “Have you been drinking yet?”
I guess he assumed my drinking was inevitable.
The safest assumption is that, when the officer asks, “Have you had anything to drink?”, he means in the last ten minutes.
The answer should always be, “No”. No qualifiers, no explanation, just “No”.
Regards,
Shodan
Pointing out the obvious here, but if you’ve had two LARGE beers in 2 hours, you may well have been over the limit. DUI’s are serious business these days so next time you might want to limit yourself to one large beer in 2 hours before driving.
The proper answer is “No, sir.”
PunditLisa, notice what he said right after he said he had two beers in two hours:
Several hours sounds like long enough to be totally sober, even if several really only means two. I’m assuming LARGE means one of those 25oz tall puppies. That’s two drinks.
Have one at 6, it’s pretty much out of the system by 8 (at one drink per hour). The next one at 8:15 would be gone by shortly after 10.
And I’d think that two 25oz beers two hours apart would put very few people over the legal limit at any point in the evening. Even if you chug the first one, you’d only get over 0.08% if you were a 120-lb woman or smaller. I say woman, because that’s the conservative estimate. For a given weight, a woman may have a higher BAC than a man.
Several hours sounds pretty safe to me.
I thought the proper answer was “No, just a couple of donuts”
One drink definitely puts me in a state where I shouldn’t drive for a while, whatever my percentage, but I have no tolerance and I’m a woman who weighs about 105. My solution is that if I think I’ll be driving anytime before the next morning, I get a soda. It’s a lot easier than worrying about whether I’m okay to drive or not.
I admit I’m paranoid, but about some things I WANT to be.
Someone I know said “no” cause he had previous DUI convictions. The cop tested him and he failed. Cop asked why he said “no.”
Cause I hadn’t been drinking. Just had beer.
Yep - I was put through one of those, then allowed to continue on my way.
[another hijack] I’m amazed that sobriety checkpoints are legal (they are not in the UK), especially given the 4th amendment.
AFAIK they aren’t legal in the US either. I remember when they tried that AND seatbelt checkpoints back in the '80s. It didn’t go over too well.
But who knows anymore? The current trend seems to be, “do whatever the hell you can get away with.”
To Hell with the Bill of Rights. 
I answered truthfully that I’d had two beers, gave the approximate time period I’d been drinking, and how long it had been since my second beer. He had me follow his finger with my eyes and sent me on my way. It seems to me if you’re truthful and respectful – that last one especially – you won’t be inconvenienced too much if you’re not over the limit. Of course, you can always get a real prick of a cop. Then all bets are off.
I am not a constitutional expert, but I believe sobriety checkpoints are legal because we do not have a constitutional right to drive a car.