When a holiday occurs, some people decide to celebrate the holiday by drinking alcoholic beverages. For some people, it might be necessary to drive somewhere after enjoying alcohol. If the alcohol is affecting that person’s driving abilities, they might end up in an accident. Maryland State Police are trying to stop that from happening by increasing enforcement efforts on holiday weekends, such as the St. Patrick’s Day weekend that recently passed.
In past years, state troopers saw double the amount of DUI arrests on St. Patrick’s Day weekend than what they see on normal days. Special patrols were held on the holiday weekend in areas with historically high DUI-related crashes or arrests. People who are arrested for DUI during these special patrols or during any traffic stop face serious consequences that can have lasting effects.
When a person is stopped by law enforcement officials and is suspected to be impaired, the officer might opt to ask the driver to take a blood-alcohol test. If the driver refuses to comply with that or if the result of the test is more than the legal limit of .08, the driver’s license is confiscated.
If the drunk driving charge is the driver’s first offense, the driver faces up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000 if convicted. The violation also has effects on the person’s driver’s license. A driver’s license revocation of six months and 12 points added to the driver’s license are also consequences of the violation.
Anyone who has been arrested on drunk driving charges should make sure that they understand those consequences. Making sure to get answers to questions might help the person to understand their rights in the case.
Source: Southern Maryland News Net, “Maryland State Police DUI Patrols to be Deployed in Every County This Weekend” No author given, Mar. 14, 2014