Imagine that you’re at a friend’s house and you’ve been drinking. You certainly understand that you are too impaired to drive, so you decide to do the safe thing and spend the night at their house. You do have work in the morning, but you figure you can just drive from their house to your office.
However, you get pulled over that morning, while on your way to work. The officer gives you a breath test and tells you that they’re going to arrest you for impaired driving. You’re shocked, because you thought you took steps to stay safe and follow the law. So what happened?
The rate at which alcohol is metabolized
It is definitely possible to get a DUI the day after drinking, and it just depends if the effects of drinking still lead to some level of impairment. This is related to the rate at which alcohol is metabolized by your body and removed from your system. It happens at roughly 0.015% per hour. For comparison sake, the legal limit is 0.08%.
So the real key here is just how long it has been since you had your last drink and how high your blood alcohol concentration was at that time. If you had your last drink right before going to bed, remember that your BAC could actually have climbed after you fell asleep. It can then take hours for it to drop again, leaving someone to mistakenly believe that they are sober when they are still under the influence.
Getting arrested in this manner can be confusing and unnerving, but you do have options. You need to think about your future and make sure you look into the necessary legal steps.
