DUI Accidents & Personal Injury

Hire an Experienced DUI Defense Attorney Immediately!

If you have been pulled over by law enforcement officers for Driving Under the Influence (DUI), the first thing you MUST do is seek the assistance of a skilled DUI defense lawyer as quickly as possible. Your highly-trained DUI defense lawyer will explain the consequences of your arrest and will take you through all pre-trial, trial and sentencing eventualities that apply to your individual case. You may face the impounding or forfeiture of your vehicle, fines and even imprisonment if found guilty of driving under the influence. DUI charges may also be dismissed under certain circumstances.

Alcohol-Related Vehicular Crashes - Sobering Statistics

Statistics of note:

• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that almost 18,000 died in 2006 in alcohol-related collisions, representing 41 percent of total traffic deaths in the United States

• A drunk driver kills someone every 39 minutes in the United States

• A drunk driver injures someone every minute

• It is estimated that 3 in 10 Americans (thirty percent) will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives

• Eight teenagers die each day in alcohol-related car crashes.

Penalties for Drunk Driving

The penalties for drunk driving are serious, especially if you have repeated offenses. Punishment for first time offenders may include suspension of driving privileges and fines. Punishment for subsequent offenses increases significantly and may include ignition interlock systems, mandatory attendance at substance abuse meetings, fines, monetary restitution and even jail time.

Alcohol-Related Crashes and Vehicular Homicide

Although most traffic violations are considered minor criminal offenses, DUI/DWI are considered very serious offenses. The challenges are far more serious when the charge is for some form of vehicular homicide, when someone was killed as the result of a crash where the driver was under the influence of alcohol, even at a level insufficient to support a DUI-DWI charge. Vehicular homicide is defined as a distinct offense, with the essential elements being that a homicide was committed by means of a vehicle and that the operator of that vehicle was impaired by alcohol at the time of the accident.

Some states require the prosecution to prove that a driver was intoxicated under state law at the time of the accident to support a conviction while others only require proof that alcohol impairment of the driver was a proximate cause of the death. Proximate cause is when, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any intervening cause, produces injury, and without which the result would not have occurred.

In a case where someone has been killed, from the time of the arrival of the police at an accident scene, investigation of the accident and the collection of evidence will be important to both the prosecution and the defense. Given the nature of the crime, the defendant in a drunk driving vehicular homicide case will be seen as the villain. However, he may be a driver who, until the time of the accident, had a clean driving record and now may be facing mandatory sentencing and imprisonment if convicted. The role of a driver's defense attorney is crucial from the earliest stages of the case, as is the role of the prosecutor, who may have to seek a conviction based on circumstantial evidence since there are rarely witnesses in drunk driving cases.

The key element in a case will be to prove the driver's impairment by alcohol, and that his condition was the proximate cause of the death. Both the police and the defense attorneys’ investigations will try to ascertain:

• Whether the defendant was the driver of the vehicle in question
• Whether the defendant/driver was intoxicated or under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident
• Whether the defendant's/driver's use of alcohol caused the accident (there may also be attempts to assign fault to other parties, such as the driver's companions/passengers or the party who provided the driver with alcohol)
• Whether the defendant's/driver's car was involved in the accident, which may be a question in hit and run cases

Both the prosecution and the defense will rely upon several categories of evidence:

• Evidence from the accident scene, including physical evidence and photos of the scene the crash
• Positive identification of the driver involved in the accident
• Testimony from the crash investigator
• Expert witness testimony on the vital question of whether a crime or an accident has occurred, based on whether the driver's use of alcohol was the proximate cause of the crash

If you have been involved in a serious alcohol-related traffic accident where you were the driver, you need to hire an experienced DUI defense attorney as quickly as possible. If, conversely, you were injured while a driver or passenger in a vehicle that was hit in the crash, you need to hire a highly-trained personal injury (PI) attorney.

If you or a loved one has been charged with DUI or injured in an alcohol-related vehicular crash, please fill out our secure free legal evaluation form and one of our DUI attorneys will contact you immediately. Or you can call us toll free at 800-798-8384. Penalties for DUI can be strict. Our experienced lawyers can help you through this difficult time. Your information will remain confidential at all times.