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Washington drunk driving law, like that of numerous other states, has gone through numerous different iterations over the years. At one moment in time driving drunk in Seattle, for instance, was looked over as a inconsequential offense. If you were too inebriated to drive you were simply given a ride home by the cops, told to call up a person, or made to hike to your place. Over time, as specific groups began to organize around stopping DUIs (students against impaired driving, mothers against intoxicated driving, etc.) they started to fight for stronger rules hostile to drunk driving.

As those provisions were passed, the penalties of a drunk driving conviction increased in proportion to the degree of discretion afforded cops and prosecutors decreased. The rules have not gone so far as to be formally acclaimed as an “exception” to the Constitution (the implied consent to a breath test, which in truth is a encroachment of your fifth amendment right to not testify against yourself). Furthermore, as drunk driving arrests have become a more high profile crime to report on, police, it seems, have become increasingly more vigilant in arresting individuals for DUI, even going so far as to stop them for no valid explanation to check them for drunk driving (I know, it goes against common sense to stop a person to check them for driving under the influence when they demonstrate no noticeable signs of driving under the influence - as your Seattle DUI attorney why that is, possibly they’ll possess an reply).

They’ve even gone so far as to stop people for glancing the white lane line differentiating lanes one instant. For example, let’s suppose you are driving along I-5 in Seattle, take an exit onto one of the streets, and in so doing you come into contact with or cross over the white line marking the lane for barely one second. I know you all have done it - what about when taking a pretty sudden bend and you cut it off just a bit to make the turn easier? Well, what if, based on this one act only, a police pulled you over to investigate you for a Seattle driving under the influence?

Well, fortunately, the Washington State Supreme Court has decided that the law, which states that someone is to stay in their line of traffic “as reasonably as practicable” denotes that from time to time you might go outside of the traffic lane. It is only if going outside of the traffic lane creates a safety danger that a solitary violation warrants a traffic stop.

This is precisely the reason why if you are detained and later arrested for driving under the influence in Washington, whether it be Seattle, Kirkland, Kent, Bellevue, Everett, or anywhere else in between, that you retain a first-rate Seattle driving under the influence lawyer and undertake to memorize exactly what occurred that caused the stop in addition to what occurred following. It can be the difference between dismissal of your driving under the influence case and conviction.