Driving under the influence is a dangerous and reckless activity that can ruin far more lives than just the intoxicated driver. It’s why so many jurisdictions across America take driving under the influence very seriously. A DUI can destroy your finances, your employment, and future opportunities, but you don’t have to worry about that so long as you drive sober, right? Sadly, as at least 2,547 drivers in Tennessee have learned the hard way from 2017 to 2023, you can be legally sober and still catch a DUI.
This story caught our attention as it spread across the news and social media. Many Americans are learning that false DUI arrests are a thing, and this revelation is thanks to the excellent reporters at WSMV4 in Nashville, Tennessee. The station has a long-running investigation into false DUI arrests in Tennessee and across America, and its results have been sobering.
In 2022, WSMV4 Investigates launched “Sobering Problem.” It’s an excellent series of investigative journalism that deserves some time in the spotlight. Here’s how the station describes it:
Every day, officers in Tennessee pull over and arrest drivers believed to be under the influence. But what happens to those who aren’t intoxicated?
Since 2022, WSMV4 Investigates’ “Sobering Problem” series has exposed a troubling trend of sober Tennessee drivers being wrongfully arrested for DUI. Chief Investigator Jeremy Finley uncovered a lengthy delay in blood tests that destroyed the lives of sober drivers while they waited to be proven innocent.
The shocking discoveries went on to spur the creation of a new state law and earn a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award.
It Started With A Mom
WSMV4 was first alerted to something suspicious with Tennessee’s DUI arrests back in 2022. On June 20, 2022, the outlet published a story with the headline “Blood test shows woman charged with DUI/felony child neglect was sober at time of arrest.” The video is embedded above. Here’s what the story stated:
After working 41 hours in three days caring for COVID patients, Katie Slayton had the day off on Sept. 22, 2021. A single mother of a five-year-old son, the Williamson County nurse had dropped him off at daycare that evening so she could run to the mall. A few hours later, she picked him up and prepared to pull out of the parking spot when she saw police lights directly behind her.
What would happen next would result in devastating consequences: charges of DUI and felony child neglect, separation from her son for nine weeks, and an agonizing six months of waiting for blood test results. A test that would ultimately show she was sober the entire time. “(Franklin police) have traumatized my son; they have traumatized me. They have driven a nurse, with a clean record in 3 states, right out of Franklin, Tennessee,” Slayton said.
In the story, WSMV4 explains that Slayton’s nightmare started after a worker at the daycare called the police, saying that Slayton seemed “off.” Reportedly, the worker told police that Slayton was talking to herself, walking in circles, and scratching her head.
Police would make contact with Slayton, and she explained that she was sober. She even agreed to a field sobriety test. Likewise, an officer in the interaction even said that they didn’t smell any alcohol. Slayton noted that she took Prozac and Adderall for ADHD.
Police then take Slayton’s five-year-old son away before having her do the field sobriety test. Reportedly, this stressed Slayton out, and she got shaky while performing the field sobriety test. Police conclude that she has slurred speech and must be drunk. They arrested her, and since she had no family in Tennessee and a dead phone, her son was put into the custody of the state.
It would take nine weeks for the blood test to come back, which showed that she was not drunk. A psychologist then had to examine Slayton to deem her fit to take back custody of her son. All of this meant that, for nine weeks, she was separated from her son, and she faced charges for felony child neglect and DUI despite not being drunk at all. Once the blood test came back clean, the charges were dropped. But that was it. She was never given an apology or anything. Slayton responded to the result by taking her son and leaving Tennessee. That’s fair.
The investigation suggested that, in Slayton’s case, maybe she was believed to be drunk due to her ADHD behavior, which reportedly can be similar to drunken behavior to the untrained eye.
Here’s how the Tennessee Code defines driving under the influence:
- It is unlawful for any person to drive or to be in physical control of any automobile or other motor driven vehicle on any of the public roads and highways of the state, or on any streets or alleys, or while on the premises of any shopping center, trailer park, or apartment house complex, or any other premises that is generally frequented by the public at large, while:
- (1) Under the influence of any intoxicant, marijuana, controlled substance, controlled substance analogue, drug, substance affecting the central nervous system, or combination thereof that impairs the driver’s ability to safely operate a motor vehicle by depriving the driver of the clearness of mind and control of oneself that the driver would otherwise possess;
- (2) The alcohol concentration in the person’s blood or breath is eight-hundredths of one percent (0.08%) or more; or
- (3) With a blood alcohol concentration of four-hundredths of one percent (0.04%) or more and the vehicle is a commercial motor vehicle as defined in § 55-50-102.
The consequences for DUI convictions in Tennessee are harsh. For example, here’s what a first conviction would get you, from the National College of DUI Defense:
For a DUI 1st conviction: Eleven month and twenty nine day (11/29) sentence, with a minimum service or forty eight (48) hours jail, a fine between $350.00 to $1,500.00, Alcohol safety class, suspension of drivers license for one (1) year. (Eligible for restricted license). If your blood or breath sample is .20% or higher the jail time is seven (7) consecutive days.
WSMV4 warns that, as of this year, police can use “reasonable force” to get a blood sample and that the license suspension minimum is now a year and a half. If you keep on driving drunk and get six or more DUI convictions, here’s the consequence:
For DUI 6th or subsequent convictions: This is a C-felony, with a range of punishment from three (3) to fifteen (15) years imprisonment, with a minimum of one hundred and fifty (150) consecutive days in jail, a fine between $3,000.00 and $15,000.00, and a loss of driver’s license for eight (8) years. (Eligible for Restricted License with an Ignition Interlock Device).
It Gets Worse
This sparked a greater investigation. Slayton was far from the only person to be charged with a DUI or worse despite not being under the influence. Throughout 2024, WSMV4 Investigates revealed the stories of several people who were arrested for DUI and were later found to be sober. In more than one instance, arresting officers allegedly even refused to let the person blow into a breathalyzer despite believing they were drunk. WSMV4 Investigates even found at least one instance where Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers muted their body cams while arresting someone for an alleged DUI.
Then, on November 4, 2024, WSMV4 dropped a bombshell of a report titled “609 sober drivers arrested for DUI in Tennessee between 2017-2023.” Reporters dug into Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) data on DUI arrests and found something shocking. From WSMV4:
WSMV4 Investigates’ reporting found a backlog of alcohol and toxicology tests at the TBI means innocent drivers are losing their jobs and insurance while they wait to clear their names.
[…]
The TBI data shows the arrest of sober drivers happened one or less than one percent of the time in that time frame. The vast majority of DUI arrests resulted in either alcohol or drugs found in the driver’s system. But because there are so many DUI arrests, an average of 15,000 a year, that one percent has resulted in hundreds of arrests of sober drivers. WSMV4 Investigates spoke with Alex Otte, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Tennessee. “Nobody wants drunk drivers on the road, ever. But what does it say that we keep finding sober people being arrested for DUI? I have heard of those on a very limited scale and those are, of course, tragic for anyone involved,” Otte said. WSMV4 Investigates is now seeking reactions to the data from law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. We are also asking the TBI to release the locations of the arrests as well as the police agencies responsible.
State lawmakers were incensed to hear that Tennesseans were being arrested for drunk driving when they weren’t drunk. The result was Senate Bill 1166, which was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee on May 2, 2025. The law required the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to identify just how many sober people have actually been arrested for DUI despite actually being sober.
More Than 2,500 Legally Sober People Arrested
In January 2026, TBI finally reported its findings, and the situation was far worse than even WSMV4 discovered. TBI admitted that it grossly undercounted its report of people falsely arrested for DUI by thousands of cases. The now official estimate is that 2,547 Tennessee drivers have been arrested for DUI between 2017 and 2023, even though blood tests had proven they had no alcohol or drugs in their systems. On average, cops in Tennessee arrest around 15,000 people for DUI each year. At first, it was believed that up to one percent of those arrested for DUI were actually sober. Now, the data suggests that it’s slightly more than twice that on average.
Why Are Sober People Getting DUIs?
Now that the data has been revealed, the big question is simply “why?” How are so many sober people getting charged with DUIs? WSMV4 interviewed former state police officers Ashley Smith and Adam Potts. Both claim that these false arrests were due, at least in part, to increased arrest quotas. The video is embedded above. From WSMV4:
WSMV4 Investigates obtained internal maps emailed to troopers in the Jackson district, and recorded audio from a trooper’s meeting in Chattanooga, which Smith and Potts say reveals the department’s insistence that DUI arrests increase. In the recorded meeting, officials told troopers to “arrest every DUI that you can get your hands on” and “load the jail full of them.” The meeting, led by Captain Patrick Turner out of Chattanooga, stipulated that troopers on the midnight shift would be required to make 100 DUI arrests each year.
“Well, it could look like arresting a hundred plus DUIs a year,” Turner said when describing what “hard work” looks like for troopers. Turner can also be heard saying, “You turn in 33 DUIs for a year… And 1.7 contacts (meaning people pulled over for traffic violations)… You’re gonna get spanked.”
Tennessee Highway Patrol denied the allegations despite the recording. The news station then found that Captain Bruce McCarley allegedly sent out “DUI Maps” which showed which officers were operating in certain counties and how many DUI arrests they had made.
WSMV4‘s investigation would end up spreading beyond the borders of Tennessee, and the station has reported that sober people all over America are getting arrested for drunk driving. See the attached video:
The most recent report from the station detailed the story of Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper Asa Pearl. The station reported that 41 of Pearl’s arrests from 2021 to 2024 were dismissed. In eight of those cases, blood tests revealed no alcohol or drugs in their blood at all. In 14 of those cases, no drugs were found, and alcohol levels were below the legal limit. The 19 other cases were dropped for various reasons, including Pearl not showing up to court and Pearl not being able to remember the details of the arrest. Pearl resigned in 2024 with no reason given.
The Highway Patrol Responds
The Tennessee Highway Patrol says that the arrests were valid and that the quota story is false. WZTV Nashville has been conducting its own investigation for two years, and here’s what it reported in January 2026:
Tennessee Highway Patrol Col. Matt Perry testified before the Senate Transportation and Safety Committee on Wednesday. Sen. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, asked Perry about news reports of people being arrested despite having no drugs or alcohol in their system.
“There’s certainly no quota like some of these articles have pushed,” Perry said. “A trooper’s job is to go out there and arrest every impaired driver, and in cases where people have come back with no blood alcohol or drugs in their system, we review every one of those.
“We have not had one case … and we have our experts in our department review those … we have not had one that they said, ‘Yeah, this was somebody that probably should not have been arrested,’” he said. “Every review we’ve done on all these cases, there’s evidence. There are indicators … field sobriety testing, roadside indicators … the odor of alcohol, the odor of certain drugs, bloodshot, watery eyes … slurred speech. We don’t smell alcohol and then go, ‘OK, we’re taking you to jail now.’”
WZTV Nashville questions how it’s possible that officers smelled alcohol on people who test negative for drugs or alcohol. It’s noted that, following a clean blood test report, courts dismiss these DUI cases.
Unfortunately, the reporting suggests that not much has changed. An attorney interviewed by WSMV4 ended the story with a chilling remark that “this could happen to your child. This could happen to your parent. This could happen to your coworker.” The mountain of evidence uncovered by WSMV4’s great journalists suggests that’s not an exaggeration.
I highly recommend reading the news station’s reporting on this because I’ve captured only a sliver of the more than a few dozen stories on the matter. Otherwise, drive safely. Put down the phone, call an Uber if you’re intoxicated, and don’t treat the road like a racetrack. Good luck!
Top image: Tennessee Highway Patrol
Attorney here. Let me start by saying that impaired drivers should be arrested. I do not represent anyone that fails a breathalyzer or blood test. No reason to drive impaired, period. That being said, I have talked to higher ranking officers in the local police department that admit to telling patrol officers to state “I detect the odor of alcohol” very soon after pulling someone over on most occasions. This is to give them a basis/probable cause later when questioned why they arrested someone. Have advised my kids and others to respond “no sir, you do not” in a polite but insistent tone of voice, and if the stop continues, to ask to be sure that the officer’s body camera is on and working, again politely.
Making America Great again.. Sundown laws and the need for RAS has just been replaced with “I smell weed”.
I interned as a prosecutor during my last year of law school. Good practical experience, basically letting soon to be lawyers get in the courtroom and get comfortable under supervision of young lawyers. If I read an officer report he/she smelled “the distinct odor of alcohol” and observed “bloodshot and glassy eyes” in one arrest affidavit, I read it in 500.
Police forces have bragged they are making more DUI arrests, which proves how effective their enforcement is.
When you look at results, numbers show the opposite.
They go from low numbers of highly impaired drivers to higher numbers of barely arrestable or illegally arrested drivers pulled over without cause.
Fishing stops, instead of patrolling for actual dangerous driving.
I’m pinning this, because oh my it’s great advice!
Great story!
I would like to draw your attention to the lack of due process in TN DMV licensing, and this is not recent.
The legal profession fought it, but it was changed and now there is none.
Also, Georgia has certified some police to become stoner experts, ie another fake skill.
Their record is as accurate as dogs are at providing probable cause, lower than random chance.
The attorney above should bear in mind that that’s not how investigation works.
Everything is questioned. Everything!
Breath tests are junk science, and blood alcohol itself is not evidence of anything except blood alcohol.
When I had to deal with drug testing, I found the guy that invented blood tests for the government, and he confirmed that many cheap shortcut tests are unreliable.
There are occasions to refuse testing or get your own accurate test yourself, based on gas chromatography.
But, as I warned a coworker once, that one will be accurate.
Along with all these gimmicks, the background check gimmick was a device intended to restrict access to human rights.
The old joke is “I never pass a background test.” funny because it was so often true.
The slipshod way it was designed is the reason. It took years before I passed one, and that took having them root out cases with even similar names from old files.
Friend took over a year to pass his first one, thanks to California obstruction.
An attorney gave me truly brilliant advice once. Advised me to order official background checks on myself, state and federal.
Best to get the most verified type.
This preserves a snapshot in time in case it is ever needed. Also it may be useful at other times in lieu of the time and expense of a new report.
This sort of frozen snapshot will not exist if you don’t do this.
“Slayton noted that she took Prozac and Adderall for ADHD.”
Adderall is a controlled substance, Prozac is a substance affecting the central nervous system:
“(1) Under the influence of any intoxicant, marijuana, controlled substance, controlled substance analogue, drug, substance affecting the central nervous system, or combination thereof that impairs the driver’s ability to safely operate a motor vehicle by depriving the driver of the clearness of mind and control of oneself that the driver would otherwise possess”
So then the question is whether that Prozac and Adderall she admitted to taking was affecting her ability to drive safely.
“a worker at the daycare called the police, saying that Slayton seemed “off.” Reportedly, the worker told police that Slayton was talking to herself, walking in circles, and scratching her head.”
“she got shaky while performing the field sobriety test. Police conclude that she has slurred speech and must be drunk.”
That’s…not good. Drunk or not it sounds like there was cause to question her ability to drive safely.
I followed a drunk(?) driver up a mountain pass. He was turning late at the bends in the road and ran a trailer towing SUV off the road, totaling their outfit. Having just barely avoided getting hit by the SUV, I let my wife out of our truck and chased the errant driver down. When I told him he caused a wreck and had to go back, he complained that he was headed to Tahoe to pick up his nephew. I convinced him to go back and ultimately he was arrested for driving under the influence of Soma. My nurse daughter said her workmates call it coma, because of the effects it has.
Thank you for your service. I’m glad everyone came out of it OK overall.
It’s stories like this that fuel my desire for actual self driving cars to exist so impaired drivers like this fade into a bad collective memory.
Neither police officers nor day care workers are qualified to assess impairment.
Daycare workers don’t have the authority to arrest anyone so it does not matter whether they are qualified to assess impairment or not. If they have suspicion something isn’t right they only have the power to call 911, same as you and I.
Cops OTOH are supposed to be trained and have experience in assessing impairment as related to driving, however they only have the authority to arrest someone, not convict them. An arrest is based on suspicion. It’s up to the court to convict and much of that conviction is based on whether THEY believe the cop has the qualifications to assess impairment.
Were you to be summoned as a potential juror on such a case and if you were to state “neither police officers nor day care workers are qualified to assess impairment” to the court they would, I hope, assess you to be unqualified to be a juror.
I’d be surprized if either side put me on a jury, but not for making accurate statements.
I was on a test jury for a medical device case once. Not sure how they felt about our conclusion.
Accurate as to your opinion perhaps. But its just your opinion.
ACAB. Plain and simple.
The article seems to say she waited 9 weeks for the blood test results in one spot, and 6 months in another spot?
Never mind ‘Defund The Police’, how about ‘Educate and Properly Train The Police’ and ‘Vet the Police Applicants’?
Bad policy reinforces bad results.
I imagine the two main factors in the arrest of a sober person would be officers’ refusal to give a sobriety test in the field and, probably more commonly, arrestees’ refusal to take one. The former is agency error, and the latter is the driver’s decision. People who feel they’re being wrongly accused are likely more apt to hold out for a blood test at the station, skewing the numbers toward false arrests. Add that behavior to the quotas and you get a synergistic effect in which cops are happy to oblige suspects who want to avoid immediate testing and thus arrest them. Without quotas or similar incentives to make arrests, officers might be motivated to avoid the hassle of detainment and instead encourage suspects to blow for a good number rather than just saying “Fine, guess we’re taking you downtown.”
Welcome to a right wing state, where charges are made up and justice doesn’t matter.
Whatever happened to “Protect and Serve”?
“A trooper’s job is to go out there and arrest every impaired driver, and in cases where people have come back with no blood alcohol or drugs in their system, we review every one of those.”
No. An officers job is not to arrest every impaired driver. An officers job is to enforce the law. The fact that they have time to just sit around wait until they see something to pull you over for says a lot. Secondary charges after being pulled over are what they’re really after. Who is that helping? The vast majority of DUI offences are just over the legal limit which is purposely set too low. Drivers pulled over for minor moving violations (or nothing at all) having their rights violated by law enforcement that are trained to lie to you and who’s goal is to arrest you for anything they can. You are a trophy and a really good source of income for your local PD. DUI laws have gone too far in this country. Yeah I said it.
It is also pretty much impossible to respect the law when the ones enforcing it are constantly breaking it without consequence and now we have federal agents trampling constitutional law which will only trickle down to local PDs that have already been militarized beyond repair. Why is law enforcement held in such low regard in this country? Why does it seem like us vs. them? Because that is how they have chosen to operate and we resist accordingly. This isn’t a question of the chicken or the egg.
I have nothing to hide but I also do not consent to being searched. Ever. I also don’t roll the window down when I’m pulled over. You are not required to. Show your license and proof of insurance through the window. If they write a ticket they can place it under the windshield wiper and be on their way. This is true for DUI checkpoints as well. If you are not suspected of committing a crime that can be articulated by the officer you do not have to produce ID and cannot be detained. Just because you are driving a vehicle does not mean you have to show them your license unless they are accusing you of a specific crime or violation.
Also, don’t drive impaired. Also, also, don’t let your rights be violated.
“The meeting, led by Captain Patrick Turner out of Chattanooga, stipulated that troopers on the midnight shift would be required to make 100 DUI arrests each year.”
Police should never have quotas. That just forces them to make up crime, even when it doesn’t exist, just to protect their jobs and livelihood. I mean, shouldn’t less arrests be a good thing? If arrests and crime reports go down each year, that means the police are doing a great job. If the arrests and crimes keep going up and up, then what’s wrong with the police and why are they allowing it to get out of hand?
My knees,back,and hips are at the point where I have to get them fixed.I work 3rd shift and fear the day that some cowboy will pull me over and make me do a DUI test that I will never pass.Even though I don’t drink alcohol or take any type of drugs I fear the worst.
Refuse on medical grounds.
I read a very telling statement years ago. The worst trained, worst equipped officers are guarding your safety and property. The best trained, best equipped officers are hiding behind billboards filling quotas.
“we have not had one that they said, ‘Yeah, this was somebody that probably should not have been arrested,’””
Applicable in all circumstances, not just DUIs, I’m sure.
I bet I know where Asa Pearl has been working lately.
I Could Estimate…
Damn. High five, David!
What’s the reason police in the states (or at least in a lot of states) don’t use breathalysers?
They’re expensive and difficult to keep calibrated, and also they’re unbiased by race, gender, wealth or arrest quotas.
They are as reliable as reading entrails, at best.
Any person thinking about it can figure out how they are scientifically invalid.
Blood alcohol by itself doesn’t indicate impairment.
The whole breath alcohol rule was invented as an illegal shortcut for police and pushed by Mother’s Against Due Process.
I smell a class action lawsuit brewing…
It’s not just Tennessee many state police agencies need to be scaled down and investigated for their criminal actions. Almost every state has false dui arrests. With offending parties getting jail time for their actions it’s the only way to stop this. Auction off the stuff they bought with civil asset forfeiture and go after the offending parties for the rest to make victims whole. The institute for Justice has been getting involved a lot and doing great work.
You could tell Tennessee had way too many troopers just driving on 40 they would be all over the place. Then they start trying to justify their job. Meanwhile the road is in terrible condition. I used to say take away their costume their badge and gun and give them a shovel and high visibility vest so they can actually do something for society.
Cities in Tennessee that underfund police have asked for highway patrol to help locally.
I also endorse the institute for Justice.
They need to be much larger.
It’s almost like setting quotas for arresting people leads inevitably to bad behavior by law enforcement. Who could possibly have predicted that?
That said, I think it’s worth noting that in the first case driving tired can leave you just as impaired as driving drunk. It was a shitty situation (it’s a miracle we have any medical personnel left after the way we treated them during COVID) and obviously should have been handled differently, but the initial suspicion may not have been unfounded.
I take every opportunity to point out the dangers of driving tired because it’s by far the most dangerous thing I ever did in a car, and although I was fortunate enough to get away with it once, I’ve also been first on the scene of an accident where someone fell asleep, crossed the center line, and ended up in a ditch 100 feet off the road (he was fine, his van was not). Alcohol is not the only way to drive impaired.
But they said they don’t have quotas so we have to believe them despite recorded evidence to the contrary. Alternative facts are facts.
I have MS, and one of the impacts is lower leg balance/coordination issues. Although I’ve been managing fine for several years now, I dread the day I wind up having to explain it to an officer on the roadside.
I couldn’t even get through this whole article. It reminded me that I once got sobriety tested when I just wasn’t having a good day. This was in my home state of New York, just north of NYC, so best believe this isn’t only going on in conservative areas. Fuck what this country has become.
Police quotas are dumb, and research shows that they produce abuse of power, degrading or ruining innocent people’s lives. There should be a better way to check on one’s work performance.
Whatever happened to “Innocent until proven guilty”? Some person’s whim of an opinion is not ‘proof’.
Some of those state troopers need to be sobriety tested before they’re allowed to work
Last week in Brockton & Hanover, Massachusetts:
“An off-duty Hanover police officer struck and killed a 23-year-old pedestrian after a night of drinking at a Brockton strip club, according to a police report.
Thomas Hayes, 36, was arrested Monday, Feb. 16 and arraigned the following day in Brockton District Court on one count of leaving the scene of personal injury and death and one count of motor vehicle homicide by negligence, according to court records.
The charges stem from a fatal pedestrian crash that occurred in the early morning hours Monday near the intersection of Battles Street and Cross Street in Brockton.”
This crew of police officer buddies started drinking at 10:00 am at a Daytonna 500 party and ended at 1:30 am the following morning.
At least these clowns reported their idiot friend as soon as they could and didn’t try to hide the crime like some other local police clans.
https://www.enterprisenews.com/story/news/crime/2026/02/17/hanover-police-officer-thomas-hayes-arrested-fatal-brockton-crash-hit-and-run/88720287007/
Elsewhere in Massachusetts, a sheriff got arrested on an OUI charge in 2024 after literally driving the tire off his government-issued car and leaving it at a jaunty angle in front of a casino. The delicate dance between him and the responding trooper deserves narration by Attenborough:
https://youtu.be/HRfl8u2fv98?si=aTbB8lhMyTZ0q7Oo
Did he face serious repercussions? Well, he’s still on the job and his re-election page wishes you a happy New Year:
https://www.instagram.com/cocchifors,heriff/?hl=en
https://www.nepm.org/regional-news/2024-10-02/hampden-county-sheriff-cocchi-suspended-for-3-days-after-arrest
I’ve been following this story online as well. And you are right that WSMV is doing a great job of reporting this issue. I really think that field sobriety testing is just too subjective. I’ve seen videos of people doing the tests perfectly and the officer still thinks they are impaired. As an example, I would never pass a field sobriety test for 2 reasons: I have a natural nystagmus in my eyes, and I have three compressed vertebrae in my spine.
Here in British Columbia, we don’t do field sobriety — the police here just have you do a roadside breathalyzer. And yes, I know those aren’t 100% accurate, but it’s better than field sobriety testing. Until the police can figure out a way to make these roadside tests objective, I just don’t trust them.
This. If you ever get pulled over for DUI (and you are innocent), always insist on a breathalyzer or blood test. Getting hauled to the station is worth it to get your name unambiguously cleared.
Yeah field sobriety tests are complete voodoo
As are breath tests.
In my state (NC) you have to be arrested for DUI before you get the official test. That involves an automatic 30 day suspension of your DL. I’ve been a juror on a DUI case. The entire field sobriety ‘test’ is a bunch of nonsense. The test is everything you do from the moment you step outside the vehicle, and there are so many subjunctive aspects that anyone can fail, regardless of sobriety. We wasted 2 days of courtroom time with them explaining all the aspects of the field sobriety test. They could have wrapped up this case in 2 minutes. What did the defendant blow on the Intoxilizer? He blew a .11. Why did he get pulled over? He drove down the center lane of a 5 lane road next to a cop for a half a mile. OK, that’s all we need, guilty it is.
Yeah, here in New Zealand it’s always a roadside breathalyzer, and if it’s a fail, you go back to the station and either get a calibrated test or blood test if requested. If it’s a targeted checkpoint, there’s usually a booze-bus instead to do the calibrated tests.
To all of the thin-blue-line boys and girls, this behavior is why I do not trust any form of law enforcement, and avoid interaction, even casually, at all costs. This story is about the ones who got caught. Imagine the true extent of police corruption. I concede law enforcement is a necessary evil, and I have no sympathy for f@#$ing drunks. But it feels like we have fully transitioned to being a banana republic.
Except in a banana republic a nominal bribe will let you go on your way..
Whilst I get that being an officer can be a thankless job….
Actually, fuck that. Almost every job is a thankless one, full of stressful, often impossible goals to be met, handed down by supervisors who couldn’t do it either, so I’m not going to give them that excuse.
What, pray tell, are the repercussions of this type of egregious mistake? Imagine if I stole an officer’s cruiser while waiting on a response to my application to the police academy. I promise I’ll give it back if I’m not accepted, but I’m not going to apologize.
Goddamn bad apples.
Roughly 28-30% of all fatal accidents on Tennessee roads were at the hands of impaired drivers (see here: https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state) for comparison data.
And roughly 98% of stops did indicate drug or alcohol impairment. But that’s still a large failure rate (15,000 stops means 2 out of every 100 – or 300 people – got punished by the process for a crime they were not guilty of).
So I think it makes sense for states to pursue this aggressively (and we have the looming in-car DUI detection that got mandated as part of the reconciliation bill a few years back, so you can look forward to GM or Toyota falsely red-flagging you in a similar fashion soon). Drunk driving leads to, in some states, more deaths from drunk driving than from homicides
That said, due process is a thing, and the state should have something analogous to a “default proceed” like done with firearm background checks – if the blood is not analyzed within X number of days (like, 3-7; if ARUP can give me complex results quickly, then I don’t think a blood and drug panel should take any longer) then the charges get dropped automatically. If any individual officer/trooper hits a failure threshold above X% (IE, more than 1 out of 50 stops is determined to not be an impaired driver), then he’s got to do remedial education and training until he can perform DUI stops again (much like the Brady lists that preclude officers from testifying in cases warranting high integrity).
Okay, first, the sample you referenced only included 180 drivers total with a BAC high enough to potentially cause impairment. That is a very small sample size.
Second, this data does not show a causal relationship between BAC and the accident. It could have been a two-car collision in which the other, sober driver was at fault. The vehicle could have experienced a mechanical failure. It is entirely possible (though admittedly not likely), that BAC played no role whatsoever in any of the 180 fatal accidents.
Third, you are assuming that the BAC data is accurate. Remember, those blood samples go through police. They could have found a way to report a higher BAC level than actual by swapping samples with ones from people known to be highly inebriated, they could have bribed the lab to fudge results, etc.
Time after time, we have seen that the drawbacks involved with increasing enforcement and police involvement dramatically outweigh any benefits. How many innocent drivers need to go to prison just so potentially, maybe, some accidents could be prevented?
That’s because, fortunately, the number of individuals driving and dying is fairly small.
I mean… it’s sort of theoretically possible in the same way that a lot of things in theory are possible, but in practice are not. You can dig deep into the cross-tabs at WISQARS or your table of choice (summarized data her: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/813713), but roughly 1/3 of drivers in single-car fatal accidents have 0.08 BAC or above. We legislatively (along with most of the rest of the world) set the limit at between 0.05 and 0.10, because no proof of impairment is needed to know that impairment has occurred at those levels.
Errrrr… so now we’re meandering into conspiracy theories here? Like, individual techs have been discovered doing bad things, and in some cases the science is absolutely dogshit for certain forensic sciences (looking at you, ballistics and arson investigation). But blood work is fairly well known and also difficult to corrupt, and a conspiracy of this magnitude would require the collaboration of dozens of people, at least one of whom would likely have a moral compass of some sort.
Prison? Who said anything about prison (jail is where you go when arrested; prison is where you go when sentenced to a felony greater than one year)? I know you intend this to be incisive rhetoric, but the reality is: drunk driving kills a lot of people, and relatively indiscriminately, so legislatures on a bipartisan basis want drunk driving laws enforced. I don’t want any innocent people to go to prison (or, more germane to this discussion, jail) on account of DUI, but at some point you do need to enforce the laws. Which is why integrity measures can and should be taken (body cams, rapid turnaround on results, double-testing samples in two different labs, matching blood results to PBA results, etc.) to preclude bad behavior, but “Don’t enforce anything” is not the answer whatsoever.
Blood alcohol is not a valid indicator of impairment.
Simple
I generally try to refrain from ad hominems, but this might be the worst and most ill-informed hot take I’ve read today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_law_by_country
Like, every country has settled on a per se metric for BAC of between 0.04 and 0.10. They do that because BAC above those levels is always going to result in impairment. Which has been settled by all kinds of studies. Like, literally hundreds to thousands of them, all of which yielded the discovery that divided-attention tasks are universally worsened when BAC exceeds 0.05. One such review of literature here:
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/1461
As you’re aware, a judge signing off on it once is all it takes to get pseudo science into a courtroom.
It is not scientific validation.
Not sure if you live in Tennessee. I do. If I were pulled over and even charged with DUI, my employment would be terminated, my professional license endangered, and my home and family immediately imperriled. Consider the woman who had her child taken away for 90 days due to a sober DUI arrest. She had to fight charges of child endangerment. That is disgusting.
So, RC, perhaps you need your own personal encounter with THP. Drive on down from Nashville to Chattanooga, pop over Mont Eagle at speed. When they pull you over, and you yawn because you are tired, and the cuffs go on, let us know if jail feels any different that prison.
This whole story is not a referendum on the pros and cons of enforcement. It is about abuse of power, corruption, and pure police hubris. F%@& them.
Driving drunk usually means someone innocent is going to get killed. For some reason the effing drunks seem to survive. OK anecdotal, but still…Having said that, this article is eye opening and the destruction of these people’s lives needs a class action suit against Tennessee. Bunch of wankers with police cruisers, guns and quotas. As if we needed anther reason to avoid Tennessee…PS. that kid taken from his mom for 90 days is going to require some expensive therapy along his life path. It should be paid by the Not So Great State of Tennessee.
You should carefully parse any statistics you look at, regardless of source.
Many statistics can’t even pass a smell test when you do the math.
So, that means >70% of accidents were just bad, distracted, or incompetent drivers or bad road design. Maybe they should concentrate of those elements.