Posted by duijim in on May 7, 2025
1. Administrative License Suspension (ALS)
Every state in the US has their own version of an Implied Consent Law, meaning you automatically agree to submit to sobriety tests when stopped by police for suspected OVI. These include breath, urine and blood testing to measure BAC (blood alcohol content) levels.
If you refuse or fail the test and are arrested for DUI, your license will be subject to an Administrative License Suspension (ALS) until your court case is heard and decided. Most OVI charges include this penalty regardless of whether they result in conviction at trial.
Critics of ALS laws argue that they constitute double jeopardy because your license will be suspended twice: first through an ALS hearing and again during your DUI trial. But courts have upheld ALS laws as being non-mandatory privileges that cannot be taken away without due process.
3. High Blood alcohol content (BAC)
Blood alcohol concentration, or BAC, measures how much alcohol a person is drinking in their system. BAC levels play an integral part of living as it impacts judgment and ability to complete certain tasks such as driving. Furthermore, this measure determines whether someone is too drunk to drive and may incur DUI penalties.
Your Blood Alcohol Concentration, or BAC, can be determined through either a breath or urine test; however, its results don’t always correlate to how drunk a person feels; many factors influence this figure including gender and weight – men generally have higher BAC levels due to drinking more rapidly than women do.
Consumption of more alcohol can rapidly increase a person’s Blood Alcohol Concentration to dangerous levels, potentially leading to unpredictable behavior that could have serious repercussions. Some symptoms of an elevated BAC include slurred speech, poor balance and coordination issues, unstable emotions as well as nausea or vomiting.