Being pulled over when you’ve been drinking is a nerve-racking experience. It may be for a faulty tail light, a forgotten vehicle registration, or a rolled stop sign. But, regardless of the reasoning, you know that you’re in the wrong in more ways than one. Police may never know, or they might ask you the dreaded question… “Have you been drinking?” You don’t want to lie, but you don’t want to get into trouble either. There isn’t exactly a great answer to this question. Every officer will react different. They are all different people. However, you have options when a law enforcement officer pulls you over.
Answering for Potential DUI? You have Options!
You have choices when it comes to how you handle this situation. Some, undoubtedly better than others, but you have to make a decision— and quickly.
Honesty
First things first, you have the option to be completely honest with the officer. If you’ve had a few drinks, simply tell them that you were out having a few drinks with friends. Furthermore, you can tell them the times of your drinks. If there were hours between your drinks, and you can relay this easily, that will signal that you’ve been drinking slowly and responsibly. Admitting this information to the officer is not necessarily incriminating. Rather, you are simply being forthright. The officer will likely breathalyze you. However, sometimes, an officer will simply let you go if they had no other reason to stop you and you are not acting intoxicated or drunk in any way.
Lying
We would never encourage you to lie to a police officer. Lying to a police officer can hurt you in the long run, especially if they find you guilty of something that you previously lied about. But, sometimes when people are unsure of how much they’ve been drinking, or if they have been drinking a lot— they’ll opt to try and help their case by lying about it. Understand that this is not a good choice to make, and we in no way endorse lying to police. Therefore, if you have this thought in mind, consider our third and final of all response options…
Reserve your right to remain silent
You have a constitutional right to not incriminate yourself. Therefore, if you know that you’ll likely be over the legal limit— reserve your right to remain silent. You can either choose to say, “I’d rather not say.” Or, even better, you can just remain silent. This may seem like a bad idea. However, if you are unsure or have been drinking a alot, it can be better to simply comply with the officer’s requests. But, do not give information that will hurt your situation.