Basic Principles of DWI State Laws
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: DWI.

Each state in the United States has different laws when dealing with people who drive while intoxicated. Most states use a blood or breath analysis test to determine the amount of alcohol in the driver’s bloodstream. Most states specify a minimum of a blood alcohol content of .08 as the legal amount to be able to get behind the wheel. Anything higher is considered DWI. There are even a few states that have charges for drivers that are under the .08 blood alcohol content threshold but more than .05. In these states, a driver is charged with “Driving While Impaired,” which is a lesser charge than Driving While Intoxicated. For pilots and commercial vehicle operators, the legal blood alcohol content is .04.

In the 1980s, DWI laws started becoming much stricter as we saw more and more attention being brought to drunk driving. Prior to the 1980s, in some states, the legal driving Blood Alcohol Content was as high as .12. Also, since 1989 when 21 years old became the legal drinking age, there are a few states that have a much more strict DWI law for those that are under 21. For example, minors who have any alcohol in their system are considered legally drunk.

In most places, the DWI charges become much more serious if your blood alcohol content is .15 to .20, depending on the state. The reasoning behind this is that most people with a blood alcohol level this high are much more prone to passing out. Obviously, people that have a blood alcohol level this high have seriously impaired judgment, vision, and reaction time. To deter people who are extremely intoxicated, these laws were put into place.

There are people that feel the more serious DWI laws should not be enforced on those people who have high blood alcohol content. They argue that if a person’s blood alcohol level is that high, in most cases, the person must have been drinking for years and have therefore built up a tolerance to alcohol. These critics of the harsher DWI penalties claim that a person that has built up such a tolerance is much less dangerous on the road than someone with a lower blood alcohol content that has little tolerance to alcohol. However, there is no objective test to determine how much tolerance a person has towards alcohol.

DWI laws and charges become much more serious when more than $500 worth of damage has been caused. If a victim must go to a hospital within 72 hours of an accident involving DWI, the driver could be charged with a felony. Finally, some states have an escalating penalty scale. If a person is charged with DWI on more than one occasion, the misdemeanor can become a felony.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.